Re: [Salon] Contents of Salon digest.
- To: salon@listserve.com
- Subject: Re: [Salon] Contents of Salon digest.
- From: Billy Huff <billy8888@verizon.net>
- Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2021 09:48:41 -0400
- Authentication-results: mlm2.listserve.net; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=verizon.net header.i=@verizon.net header.b="iiCzwjR4"
- Dkim-filter: OpenDKIM Filter v2.11.0 mlm2.listserve.net 47679ACE86
- In-reply-to: <mailman.1.1636205537.16534.salon@listserve.com>
- References: <mailman.1.1636205537.16534.salon@listserve.com>
> On Nov 6, 2021, at 9:32 AM, salon-request@listserve.com wrote:
>
> Send Salon mailing list submissions to
> salon@listserve.com
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/listinfo/salon
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> salon-request@listserve.com
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> salon-owner@listserve.com
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Salon digest..."
>
>
> To access the full archive of posted links, visit the Salon Archive https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/ If you never set up a password for your account (It?s optional), just enter your email address and click the Password ?remind? button. The system will send you a randomly generated password that you can use to log into the archives.
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Drone Strikes and Torture Will Cause Big Blowback (Chas Freeman)
> 2. U.S. Policy Toward Myanmar?s Military Junta (Chas Freeman)
> 3. Is This the End of the Unreformable Democratic Party? . . .
> What is really at issue . . . is the Democratic Party an agent of
> democracy, or oligarchy? (Chas Freeman)
> 4. Winning the Fight Taiwan Cannot Afford to Lose (Chas Freeman)
> 5. Can US carriers survive an all-out attack from China?
> (Chas Freeman)
> 6. As Europe looks to the Indo-Pacific, so does the Luftwaffe
> (Chas Freeman)
> 7. A Japanese Seaplane Could Be the Difference-Maker for the
> U.S. Military (Chas Freeman)
> 8. Saudi Arabia: Shifting Alliances? . . . has recently made
> several exploratory moves beyond the boundaries of its
> relationship with Israel and several significant steps outside
> its relationship with the US. (Chas Freeman)
> 9. I?m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America?s
> ?Shipping Crisis? Will Not End (Chas Freeman)
> 10. Why I (Grudgingly) Voted Republican (Chas Freeman)
> 11. The Limits of Saudi-Iranian D?tente (Chas Freeman)
> 12. To expand the Navy isn't enough. We need a bigger commercial
> fleet. (Chas Freeman)
> 13. #PizzaIsNotWorking: Inside the Pharmacist Rebellion at CVS
> and Walgreens (Chas Freeman)
> 14. Inside the Unraveling of American Zionism (Chas Freeman)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 10:30:49 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] Drone Strikes and Torture Will Cause Big Blowback
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQnmxAv+z-UQfxpuB=pUEcSire83W=79o11_f-XGaAVRxg@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> *https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/05/drone-strikes-and-torture-will-cause-big-blowback/
> <https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/05/drone-strikes-and-torture-will-cause-big-blowback/>*
>
> November 5, 2021 Drone Strikes and Torture Will Cause Big Blowback
> <https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/05/drone-strikes-and-torture-will-cause-big-blowback/>
> by Brian Cloughley <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/brian-cloughley/>
>
> Photograph Source: AK Rockefeller ? CC BY 2.0
> <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/>
>
> On October 29 a Guantanamo Bay prisoner was reported
> <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/29/going-die-guantanamo-prisoner-torture-testimony>
> as
> having testified about the torture inflicted on him over many years in CIA
> ?black sites? and the US military base in Cuba where among other things he
> was ?suspended naked from a ceiling beam for long periods, doused
> repeatedly with ice water to keep him awake for days. He described having
> his head held under water to the point of near drowning, only to have water
> poured into his nose and mouth when the interrogators let him up. He was
> beaten, given forced enemas, sexually assaulted and starved . . .?
>
> A week earlier, on United Nations Day, the Biden White House announced
> <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/22/a-proclamation-on-united-nations-day-2021/>
> that
> the United States is committed ?to the original vision and values enshrined
> in the United Nations Charter? which involved ?creating a rules-based
> international order? and ensuring ?adherence to international law.? The
> declaration was made two months after a US drone strike in Kabul killed
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/pentagon-drone-strike-afghanistan.html>
> ten
> civilians, including seven children. As the International Red Cross points
> out <https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule89>,
> the ?arbitrary deprivation of the right to life? includes ?unlawful killing
> in the conduct of hostilities, i.e., the killing of civilians and persons *hors
> de combat* *not* in the power of a party to the conflict not justified
> under the rules on the conduct of hostilities.? Consequently, according to
> Washington?s ?rules-based international order?, it is unlawful to kill
> civilians.
>
> But all the Pentagon has done about the Kabul kid-killing is to eventually
> and with reluctance admit that it did indeed slaughter an innocent man and
> many of his family ? and it is most unlikely that anything would have been
> divulged if it hadn?t been for the work of the *New York Times*, which
> smelled a rat. The Pentagon?s inquiry
> <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59157089> into the killings was a
> farce and the finding, released on November 3, was that there had been ?no
> violation of law, including the Law of War?.
>
> And now the Pentagon is wriggling round saying it is sorry and will throw
> money at the problem. On September 20 General Kenneth McKenzie told
> <https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/Transcripts/Article/2781320/general-kenneth-f-mckenzie-jr-commander-of-us-central-command-and-pentagon-pres/>
> the
> media that the drone-fired missile ?struck the vehicle at 4:53 PM, which
> produced an explosive event and follow-on flames significantly larger than
> a Hellfire missile would have been expected to produce.?
>
> The general probably doesn?t realize the preposterous inanity of the phrase
> ?an explosive event? and his declaration that ?we are exploring the
> possibility of ex gratia payments? is even more absurd. That Pentagon
> Hellfire ?event? killed most of the family of the vehicle?s driver, Zemerai
> Ahmadi, who
> <https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-strikes-islamic-state-group-b8bd9b0c805c610758bd1d3e20090c2c>
> had
> ?worked for 15 years for Nutrition & Education International, a
> California-based non-profit aimed at countering malnutrition in
> Afghanistan?.
>
> AP News reported
> <https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-strikes-islamic-state-group-b8bd9b0c805c610758bd1d3e20090c2c>
> that
> ?the family said when the 37-year-old Zemerai, alone in his car, pulled up
> to the house, he honked his horn. His 11-year-old son ran out, and Zemerai
> let the boy get in and drive the car into the driveway. The other kids ran
> out to watch, and the missile incinerated the car, killing seven children
> and an adult son and nephew of Zemerai.? And then, as recorded
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/pentagon-drone-strike-afghanistan.html>
> by
> the NYT, the usual lies were trotted out, and ?almost everything senior
> defense officials asserted in the hours, and then days, and then weeks
> after the August 29 drone strike turned out to be false.? The Pentagon
> liars struck again.
>
> Yet President Biden keeps telling us, as in his September remarks
> <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/09/21/remarks-by-president-biden-before-the-76th-session-of-the-united-nations-general-assembly/>
> prior
> to the UN session, that ?the equal and inalienable rights of all members of
> the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the
> world.? He regretted that ?we lost 13 American heroes and almost 200
> innocent Afghan civilians in the heinous terrorist attack at the Kabul
> airport?, but there wasn?t a word about the seven kids slaughtered by his
> drone-fired missile.
>
> The Hellfire ?explosive event? that killed Zemerai Ahmadi and his young son
> and the other children who were greeting him excitedly is far from the
> first slaughter of innocents by US missiles. Freedom, justice and peace
> have been blown apart by many a drone strike, not one of which has resulted
> in prosecutorial action following the killing of innocent civilians.
>
> Back in May 2016, after President Obama had discovered the beauty of drone
> strikes that could demonstrate US policy around the world, I wrote
> <https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/24/murder-by-drone-killing-taxi-drivers-in-the-name-of-freedom/>
> in
> Counterpunch about the murder by drone of a Pakistani taxi driver called
> Mohammad Azam who was earning his tiny daily wage by picking up passengers
> who crossed the border from Iran into Pakistan. Usually he would take them
> only to nearby villages, but one day he picked up a man who wanted to go to
> the city of Quetta, eight hours drive away. He drove off in his Toyota
> Corolla, and a few hours later, when he stopped for a rest, an Obama
> Hellfire struck and blasted the car to twisted shards of metal ? and
> reduced Azam and his customer to smoking corpses.
>
> Azam?s passenger was the evil Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor who was
> travelling under a false name. His sought-for anonymity didn?t do him much
> good, because he had been traced and tracked, and while he was in Iran or
> when he was going through border crossing examination on the Pakistan side
> it?s likely that a US-paid agent planted a chip on him or in his baggage
> that signaled his whereabouts to the drone-controlling video-gamers.
>
> Azam the taxi-driver didn?t know Mullah Mansoor and was not associated with
> the Taliban or any such organization. He was an entirely innocent man
> trying to earn enough money to feed his family ? his wife, four small
> children and a crippled brother who stayed with them.
>
> The Pentagon stated
> <http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/778259/statement-by-pentagon-press-secretary-peter-cook-on-us-airstrike-against-taliba>
> that
> ?Mansur has been an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the
> Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from
> participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to
> an end to the conflict.? So they killed him. And without the slightest
> hesitation they also killed the entirely innocent taxi driver Mohammad Azam.
>
> If a person in a foreign country that can?t retaliate to drone strikes is
> considered an enemy of the United States there is no question of arrest,
> charge and trial. When possible, they are killed by a Hellfire missile. In
> this case, five years ago, the explosive event was personally authorized by
> President Obama who stressed
> <https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/fact-sheet-us-policy-standards-and-procedures-use-force-counterterrorism>
> that
> there must be ?near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or
> killed,? and that the US ?respects national sovereignty and international
> law.? His version of respect for international law has been embraced by
> President Biden who strongly advocates
> <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/09/21/remarks-by-president-biden-before-the-76th-session-of-the-united-nations-general-assembly/>
> ?freedom,
> justice, and peace in the world.?
>
> While killing eleven year-old boys who are driving daddy?s car in their
> house driveway is as obvious a war crime as blasting an innocent
> taxi-driver to smithereens and as hideous an abomination as torturing a
> captive for years, there is even more to these violations of human rights
> than the obvious legal and moral aspects. There is the blowback factor.
>
> President Biden may genuinely believe that Washington?s drone strikes and
> torture contribute in some fashion to justice and peace, but the effects of
> these atrocities around the world cannot be calculated. We can measure the
> number of innocent people killed by Hellfire missiles, but we can?t measure
> the hatred created by their deaths.
>
> Washington can break international law with impunity so far as instant
> reaction is concerned, be that on the part of international institutions or
> those directly affected by the havoc wreaked by the Pentagon ? but for a
> very long time its barbaric activities have been encouraging worldwide
> revulsion, loathing and determination to take revenge. Although the
> long-term consequences are measureless, there is no doubt that ?explosive
> events? will blow back for a long time to come. The military-industrial
> complex has been manufacturing the next 9/11.
>
> *Brian Cloughley writes about foreign policy and military affairs. He lives
> in Voutenay sur Cure, France.*
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/00a847fa/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 11:59:19 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] U.S. Policy Toward Myanmar?s Military Junta
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQn_R_gSApQxscaJBSQhdjKKOKdUjNAUaj=N7xBKVkyAaA@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/u-s-policies-for-ending-myanmars-military-rule/?utm_source=WOTR+Newsletter&utm_campaign=30c0c5038e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_10_30_2018_11_23_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8375be81e9-30c0c5038e-83331880
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/18cc6305/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 12:53:32 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] Is This the End of the Unreformable Democratic Party?
> . . . What is really at issue . . . is the Democratic Party an agent
> of democracy, or oligarchy?
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQmOLnonpcejUW+kgqfOQ5X8M1uRZaM5G9kE0EEB=zZr2Q@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> *https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/11/michael-hudson-is-this-the-end-of-the-unreformable-democratic-party.html
> <https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/11/michael-hudson-is-this-the-end-of-the-unreformable-democratic-party.html>*
>
> Is This the End of the Unreformable Democratic Party? . . . What is really
> at issue . . . is the Democratic Party an agent of democracy, or oligarchy?
>
> November 5, 2021
>
> *Yves here*. * . . . Having shelter and food are far more important than
> identity, yet the Democrats haven?t retreated from ?Let them eat wokeness?
> mode.*
>
> *- - - *
> *By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of
> Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics
> Institute of Bard College. His latest book is ?and forgive them their
> debts?: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the
> Jubilee Year
> <https://www.amazon.com/Forgive-Them-Their-Debts-Foreclosure/dp/3981826027>*
>
> *- - -*
>
> *History has been rewritten daily this week almost immediately as it
> occurs. A Wall Street Journaleditorial on November 4 spun its view of what
> is at issue for the Democratic Party: ?Voters warn Democrats to walk away
> from the Sanders-Pelosi agenda.? The Democrats? own leadership quickly
> agreed with this take, playing the blame game against the Progressive
> Caucus for insisting on economic reforms that opinion polls have reported
> are precisely what voters say they want.*
>
> *But these are not the policies that the party?s major donors want. What
> really is at issue is just whom the Democratic Party (and their duopoly
> partners the Republicans too, of course) support: corporate lobbyists and
> the Donor Class, or wage-earning voters seeking economic policies that
> benefit them as employees, consumers and debtors.*
>
> *Can there really be doubt as to what is causing the apathy of voters to
> support the Clintonite Virginia candidate Terry McAuliffe? Was his loss
> really because voters opposed Sanders and the Congressional Progressive
> Caucus as radical extremists for supporting the policy platform that
> President Biden himself ran on and which got Democrats elected? Was it that
> Democrats are not sufficiently supporting their Wall Street and corporate
> donors and lobbyists, and that somehow voting for McAuliffe might empower
> Bernie Sanders, AOC and the Squad?*
>
> *Democrats calling themselves ?centrist? or ?moderate? insist that the
> Progressives surrender to the Manchin-Sinema rewrite of the original
> version of the Build Back Better (BBB) act and make it into a grab-bag
> benefiting the Five Percent instead of the 95 Percent by replacing its most
> popular proposals with giveaways to the wealthy ? as if this will win
> elections. Or at least, win campaign financing for the party.*
>
> *One of the most popular proposals in the original BBB act was twelve weeks
> of paternity/maternity, sick and caregiving leave, child support and
> pre-schooling support. Such aid is provided by nearly every advanced nation
> for its for its citizens. But the Democrats assigned Senator Joe Manchin
> the task of opposing this as an anti-corporate move to subsidize employees
> getting paid without working. Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership obliged
> by removing it altogether, but then agreed to a rather stingy four-week
> support program. Even so, Joe Manchin will not commit himself to support
> the downsized BBB bill when it is sent over to the Senate, saying that he
> wants ?to work with Republicans on paid leave in separate legislation.?[1]*
>
> *In today?s U.S. political duopoly the role of the Democratic Party is to
> protect the Republicans from attacks from the left. What the Republicans
> and centrists want is the ?hard? business infrastructure program, not its
> pro-labor elements. The Progressives rightly warn that their only
> opportunity to get the pro-voter BBB version approved by Congress is to tie
> it to Biden?s bipartisan infrastructure bill. Their fear is that Manchin
> will make good on his preference to wait a half year (meaning ?never? in
> political time) before submitting the BBB that was downsized first from
> $6.5 billion to $3.5 billion, and now to a reported $1.8 billion.*
>
> *Another popular element criticized as being too pro-labor to appeal to
> voters is dental and vision care for Medicare recipients, and payments for
> hearing aids and home health care. As medical and health insurance costs
> squeeze family budgets, most voters also back negotiating drug prices to
> stop the price gouging by the pharmaceutical companies. Governments
> throughout the world have long been doing this. But the ?centrists?
> threatened to exclude it, and finally proposed some reduction in the most
> exorbitant monopoly prices by promising a give-back for their drug-company
> donors in the form of more patent protection (for research initially funded
> by the government itself). The aim is to prevent other drug companies from
> producing low-priced generic versions after the patents expire.*
>
> *Student debt relief has been drastically cut back, along with plans two
> free years of community college. One after another, Biden?s campaign
> promises are being broken ? with Biden himself disowning them and showing
> impatience at how long it is taking the Progressives to surrender to
> ?reality?.*
>
> *Already thrown overboard at the start of the Biden Administration his
> promise to raise the minimum wage. The Senate parliamentarian pretended
> that this could not be submitted as a ?reconciliation? agenda, on the
> ground that it did not affect federal revenue. That was nonsense, of
> course. Raising the minimum wage would reduce federal subsidies to families
> below the poverty level ? a subsidy that has long saved Walmart and other
> minimum-wage employers dollar for dollar by enabling them to pay less than
> the actual living wage, with food stamps and other transfer payments making
> up the gap.*
>
> *Joe Manchin sheds crocodile tears over how the government will pay for
> pro-labor policies, but shows no concern about giveaways to the wealthy to
> the corporate interest or for military spending ? or for tax cuts for the
> highest income brackets. It is as if only pro-voter policies add to the
> national debt.*
>
> *Neoliberal Clintonite centrists vetoed Progressive proposals to pay for
> their program by passing one of the most popular taxes of all: the
> carried-interest tax loophole that frees financial speculators and money
> managers from having to pay income tax on their profit share and even
> management fees, lowering the rate to the capital-gains tax rate. The heavy
> hand of Wall Street campaign donors far outweighs what voters want ?
> including reversing the Trump Administration?s income-tax cuts for the
> wealthiest classes.*
>
> *While downsizing these early popular elements, Congress has increased its
> giveaway to the Donor Class in an attempt to win them over. Most egregious
> is cutting taxes for the wealthiest home owners, especially on the East
> Coast, by raising the income-tax deductibility of property taxes ? the
> State and Local Tax (SALT) ? from $10,000 to $72,500. As head of the Senate
> Budget Committee Chairman, Bernie Sanders sounded exasperated on
> election-day Tuesday when he explained that this $400 billion giveaway to
> the wealthiest 5 percent was so large, that ?the top 1% would pay lower
> taxes after passage of the Build Back Better plan than they did after the
> Trump tax cut in 2017. This is beyond unacceptable.?*
>
> *Sanders pointed out that ?Democrats campaigned and won on an agenda that
> demands that the very wealthy finally pay their fair share, not one that
> gives them more tax breaks.?[2] But the Democratic leadership replied that
> without favoring the Donor Class, their campaign financing would shrink ? a
> prospect that would lead Senate recipients of lobbying largesse to vote
> down the BBB.*
>
> *The Democratic leadership argues that failure to raise subsidies and tax
> breaks for the economy?s wealthiest rentierlayer while cutting back support
> for wage-earners will threaten their electoral prospects ? by reducing
> their fundraising appeal to the Donor Class. *
>
> *The mainstream press chimes in with the view that pro-labor policies are
> so radical that they will frighten most middle-class voters as an attack on
> property and their own hopes to somehow join the ranks of the rich someday.
> President Biden is blaming Progressives for ?blocking? the program by
> trying to preserve the policies that most voters actually want, and which
> he himself ran on in his presidential campaign a year ago.*
>
> *But most voters are wage-earners, after all. And many need child support
> and other social welfare spending, and lower drug prices and other living
> costs. Voter polls in Virginia reported that economic issues were their
> most important concern, as they are in most of the United States.*
>
> *The problem is that pro-labor social policies are not what the major
> lobbyists and campaign donors want for themselves and their clients. This
> that raises the obvious question: Did Democrats lose on Tuesday because
> their leadership was supporting opposing what their campaign contributors
> want instead of the Progressive agenda that most voters say want and what
> they voted for last November?*
>
> *Is the U.S. political system a democracy, or oligarchy?*
>
> *Put bluntly, is the Democratic Party an agent of democracy, or oligarchy?
> The past month?s Congressional debacle confirms Aristotle description of
> democracy. Many states have constitutions that are democratic in form, he
> wrote, but actually are oligarchies.*
>
> *The reason, he explained, is that democracies tend to evolve into
> oligarchies as a result of the increasing concentration and polarization of
> wealth. That gives the leading families control of the political system.
> (In his schema, oligarchies aim at making themselves hereditary
> aristocracies.)*
>
> *Translating the concentration of wealth into political control has been
> accelerating since the 1980s, and almost all increase in U.S. wealth and
> income in the year and a half since the Covid-19 outbreak struck in spring
> 2020 has accrued to the One Percent in the form of rising stock, bond and
> real estate prices. In the non-financial economy, prices charged by the
> oil, pharmaceutical and IT monopolies have led the rise, while housing
> prices have risen nearly 20 percent in the last twelve months. These
> sectors are the largest lobbyists and political campaign contributors.*
>
> *The Democratic leadership policy is to back the candidates who are able to
> raise the most money. For most candidates the lion?s share come from these
> lobbyists and special interests, for whom their donations are a business
> investment. Only a minority of progressive candidates have been able to
> raise enough small sums from many individuals to become political players.*
>
> *The situation is much like that of ancient Rome. Its constitution
> organized voting according to wealth cohorts, mainly measured by land
> ownership. The wealthiest Senatorial class, followed by the equite
> ?Knights?, were assigned voting weight overshadowing that of the 99
> Percent. In the United States, to be sure, all votes on election day are
> counted equally. The problem is how to be nominated in the first place and
> vie with rivals in the political primaries. In Rome, to succeed as a
> candidate running for office required heavy backing by the wealthy.
> (Crassus played this role, financing Caesar?s campaign, among others.)
> Leading politicians tended to be heavily in debt to their backers.*
>
> *In the United States, the debt is not as crassly monetary. What is owed is
> political support. The job description for a politician is to deliver voter
> support to one?s campaign contributors. That is how oligarchies suppress
> democracy, today as in the Roman Republic.*
>
> *Centrists and Moderates Support Existing Oligarchic Trends in Economic
> Polarization*
>
> *Upon taking office, President Biden said that nothing would really change.
> This was the opposite of Barack Obama?s slogan of ?hope and change,? but it
> was simply more honest. The Biden Administration not only has maintained
> Donald Trump?s tax cuts for the wealthy, it has increased them under the
> BBB?s SALT provision. Biden has extended offshore oil drilling rights, and
> policies benefiting the financial and corporate sectors.*
>
> *This is called being a ?centrist? or ?moderate.? If the world is
> polarizing between the One Percent and the 99 Percent, between creditors
> and debtors, monopolists and consumers, where is the middle ground? The
> Chinese have a proverb: ?He who comes to a fork in the road and tries to go
> two roads at once will get a broken hip joint.? Being a moderate means not
> interfering with the economic trends that are polarizing the U.S. economy
> between the rentierOne Percent at the top and the increasingly indebted 99
> Percent.*
>
> *That is the situation confronting today?s economy. Refusing to take steps
> to change the dynamics that are enriching the oligarchy means not reversing
> or even slowing the trends that are polarizing the economy. The Democratic
> Party leadership has opposed the influence of the Progressive Congressional
> Caucus from the beginning. This is oligarchy, not democracy. It is not even
> the largely empty formalities of political democracy, to say nothing of
> substantive economic democracy.*
>
> *What really is democracy, after all? It is the ability of voters to
> legislate the policies that they want ? and which presumably are in their
> economic and social interests. But the process is manipulated by the DNCC?s
> reliance on the Donor Class. Its political program is simply an advertising
> vehicle, with no ?truth in advertising? regulation.*
>
> *The question is, can it be reformed? Can democracy succeed without
> replacing the Democratic Party leadership with an altogether different
> political system from today?s Democratic-Republican duopoly with its common
> set of donors?*
>
> *What I cannot understand is why the Progressive Caucus has not insisted on
> naming their own supporters to the DNCC.*
>
> *The current Democratic impasse shows that no progress can be made without
> changing the institutional structure of American politics. It seems that
> the only way to do this is to make sure that the Democratic Party loses so
> irrevocably in 2022 and 2024 that it is dissolved enough to enable the
> Progressives to revive the near corpse.*
>
> *The Democrats? Identity Politics ? Any Identity Except That of Wage
> Earners*
>
> *The Democratic role is to protect the Republican party from challenges
> from the left. Its tactic has been to replace the traditional economic
> concerns of voters as wage earners, consumers, debtors and, in a rising
> proportion of cases, as renters faced with losing their homes if they fall
> into arrears as rents and housing prices are soaring. *
>
> *Identity politics is a strategy to fragment the wage-earning majority of
> voters into separate ethnic, racial and gender identities. That distracts
> attention from their class consciousness whose interests do not match those
> of the Donor Class that has gained control of the Democrat-Republican
> duopoly. This explains the DNCC?s refusal to back progressive candidates.*
>
> *Instead of appealing to wage earners, the Democratic leadership since the
> 1960s has aimed at getting voters to think of themselves as hyphenated
> Americans. Half a century ago it was Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans,
> Polish-Americans and so forth, with patronage along ethnic lines in the big
> cities. *
>
> *Today the identity politics has broadened to aim at women ? especially
> white suburban women (whose support they lost in Virginia), the Hispanic
> vote (which also faded this week), and support from black voters mobilized
> by House Majority Whip James Clyburn and what has been called the Black
> Misleadership Council (whose ethnic support finally is weakening as voters
> look at who their campaign contributors are). The Democrats? calculation
> has been something like, ?OK, we?ve written off the working class. But
> maybe we can get some voters to think of themselves as some other
> identity.? They?ve pandered to black voters with cultural applause, but not
> economic benefits. They?ve sought Hispanic support, but that is falling
> away as the Democrats hesitate to give economic support to low-income
> workers with families, whom they readily write off when offered enough
> Donor Class money from corporate lobbyists. The effect of cultural
> pandering to identity politics fails when voters see their economic
> condition as being the most important political issue.*
>
> *Is America a Failed State?*
>
> *For the moment (late Thursday evening), the BBB is still stymied as
> Congressional staff ponder over what has become a 2,135-page bill. Little
> trust is left regarding Manchin?s hint of support in the Senate. The fear
> is that the bipartisan $1 trillion business-friendly infrastructure bill
> will be passed, leaving the BBB?s social programs abandoned.*
>
> *The failure to solve this problem seems to be a duplicitous ploy of
> President Biden and the Democrats? quasi-Republican Clintonite core. Why
> not simply remove Manchin from his committee memberships, and stop federal
> subsidy of his West Virginia constituency? Instead, they have put him in
> charge of the environment bill, which he has disfigured on behalf of the
> lobbying money he receives from the oil and coal sectors.*
>
> *It is difficult to see what may take its place of today?s political
> quandary. The United States does not have a European-style parliamentary
> system that permits new parties to run and be represented in government. If
> they did, the Democratic Party would probably go the way of European
> Social-Democratic parties and shrink to a merely marginal has-been.*
>
> *But real political and economic democracy is blocked by the existing
> Constitution and the Senate filibuster requiring a 60 percent majority to
> pass laws, backstopped by a Supreme Court imposing 18th-century solutions
> to 21st-century finance capitalism and neo-rentiereconomies.*
>
> *____________*
>
> *[1]Alexander Duehren, Natalie Andrews and Richard Rubin,? Paid Leave Is
> Back in House Bill,? Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2021.*
>
> *[2]Jordain Carney, ?Sanders: Proposed five-year SALT cap repeal ?beyond
> unacceptable,?? The Hill, November 2, 2021. The most recent report, as of
> Nov. 4, is that Sanders agreed to the tax giveaway for home owners making
> under $400,000, which is now being put forth as the top of ?middle-class?
> income. SeeSenators Sanders and Menendez Propose Eliminating SALT Cap for
> People Earning Under $400K.*
>
> *https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4984949/senators-sanders-menendez-propose-eliminating-salt-cap-people-earning-400k*
> <https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4984949/senators-sanders-menendez-propose-eliminating-salt-cap-people-earning-400k>
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/7fee34bb/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 12:57:25 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] Winning the Fight Taiwan Cannot Afford to Lose
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQnNt1XLkvMBvpBN99uQYca5BSB-zyPq58M0-KStqT3_2g@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/2833298/winning-the-fight-taiwan-cannot-afford-to-lose/
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/fbb00fc2/attachment.html>
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: SF-310.pdf
> Type: application/pdf
> Size: 1189937 bytes
> Desc: not available
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/fbb00fc2/attachment.pdf>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 13:09:27 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] Can US carriers survive an all-out attack from China?
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQ=hy12yxgttELo8RtvH8hn+KK1+SPm9MfexLmd=B1KZcg@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> *https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/can-us-carriers-survive-an-all-out-attack-from-china/
> <https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/can-us-carriers-survive-an-all-out-attack-from-china/>*
>
> Can US carriers survive an all-out attack from China?The PLA can now use
> DF-21Ds to ?attack ships, including aircraft carriers,? more than nine
> hundred miles away
> *by Dave Makichuk <https://asiatimes.com/author/dave-makichuk/> November 5,
> 2021*
> *The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) transits the
> Bay of Bengal as part of Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX) 2021, Oct. 16,
> 2021. MPX 2021 is a multilateral maritime exercise between the Royal
> Australian Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, the Royal Navy, and
> U.S. maritime forces; focused on naval cooperation, interoperability, and
> regional security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by
> Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nicholas R. Carter).*
>
> *It?s the $64 question military analysts are pondering.*
>
> *Can high-tech lasers, improved missiles, better radar and improved
> networking better protect US carrier battle groups against advanced Chinese
> weapons?*
>
> *We know that carriers will need to operate effectively in extremely
> high-risk combat environments.*
>
> *So what are they up against?*
>
> *China is forever touting the array of guided missiles its weaponeers have
> devised to pummel US Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs). *
>
> *Most prominent among them are its DF-21D and DF-26 antiship ballistic
> missiles (ASBMs), which the People?s Liberation Army (PLA) has made a
> mainstay of China?s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) defenses, Kris Osborn
> <https://nationalinterest.org/profile/kris-osborn> of National Interest
> <https://nationalinterest.org/> reported.*
>
> *Indeed, the most recent annual report on Chinese military
> power states matter-of-factly that the PLA can now use DF-21Ds to ?attack
> ships, including aircraft carriers,? more than nine hundred statute miles
> from China?s shorelines.*
>
> *Then there is China?s Xian H-6 bomber, a direct evolution of the vintage
> Tupolev Tu-16 BADGER. In its original Soviet guise, the aircraft was seen
> as a medium bomber, but with a long range. *
>
> *It was not as large as the Tu-95 BEAR or M-4 BISON bombers, or as fast as
> the Tu-22M BACKFIRE. And in Russian service it was retired near 30 years
> ago. But in its Chinese form, it has been transformed into a potent bomber
> which is still formidable today, Naval News
> <https://www.navalnews.com/category/naval-news/> reported. *
>
> *The current Chinese Navy version of the Tu-16 Badger has a number of basic
> upgrades besides avionics and weapons. The crew is reduced to three in a
> remodeled forward fuselage. And they are provided with ejection seats. The
> glazed nose is replaced by a large radome and the tail gun by an auxiliary
> power unit.*
>
> *The most formidable capability seen on the H-6 is believed to be an
> anti-ship ballistic missile. This massive weapon is the largest
> air-launched missile in the world. *
>
> *A single round has to be slung underneath the fuselage. And its primary
> prey is likely to be enemy aircraft carriers. For this reason, it has been
> widely dubbed a ?carrier killer.? As far as strategic bombers go this
> capability is unique.*
>
> *The hypersonic payload is likely to include a maneuvering reentry vehicle
> which allows it to hit a moving target. And it means that it is much harder
> to counter because its flight trajectory is unpredictable. *
>
> *Even without an explosive warhead the kinetic energy alone is likely to be
> enough to destroy a warship.*
>
> *The concept, writes Osborn, is to stop an attack before it hits by using
> active defenses ? a technological feat that is a huge priority for the
> Pentagon. *
>
> *This is why ships, especially US Navy aircraft carriers, are engineered
> with extensive, layered networks of integrated defenses.*
>
> *These defenses are integrated and far too many to cite, as they include
> long-range radar, satellite communications networking and air-surface-drone
> data-sharing connectivity. *
>
> *These warships also come with electronic warfare systems to jam the
> guidance systems steering approaching weapons and also long, medium and
> short-range interceptors to eliminate threats. *
>
> *Finally, a carrier?s escorts even have deck-mounted guns to fight off
> close-in threats.*
>
> *The Navy is not only preparing a new SM-3IIA longer-range, larger and more
> precise interceptor for carrier strike groups but has also upgraded the
> SM-6 with a ?dual-mode? seeker enabling it to send a forward ping from the
> missile itself and change course in flight to adjust to moving targets. *
>
> *The Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile Block II is yet another upgraded weapon
> which can operate in ?sea-skimming? and parallel the surface of the water
> to take out lower-flying incoming threats. *
>
> *Laser defenses are no longer ?on-the-horizon? but are already here arming
> surface ships.*
>
> *The problem, however, is that the nine-hundred-mile range cited for the
> DF-21D far exceeds the reach of carrier-based aircraft. A carrier task
> force, consequently, could take a heckuva beating just arriving on Asian
> battlegrounds. *
>
> *And the range mismatch could get worse. Unveiled at the PLA?s military
> parade through Beijing last fall, the DF-26 will reportedly sport a maximum
> firing range of 1,800-2,500 miles.*
>
> *If Chinese technology continues to progress, PLA ballistic missiles could
> menace US and allied warships plying the seas anywhere within Asia?s second
> island chain. The upper figure for DF-26 range, moreover, would extend
> ASBMs? reach substantially beyond the island chain.*
>
> *Therefore, it is not surprising that layered ship defense systems are fast
> improving to incorporate a wider sphere of weapons, newer applications and
> an entire generation of new technologies.*
>
> *Sources: The National Interest, Naval News*
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/eefb3cbe/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 13:23:27 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] As Europe looks to the Indo-Pacific, so does the
> Luftwaffe
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQnoLp3=-jQGPza4-3En65WVOBKghw6aQBZchkWd2+rtEQ@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> *https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/feindef/2021/11/05/as-europe-looks-to-the-indo-pacific-so-does-the-luftwaffe/
> <https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/feindef/2021/11/05/as-europe-looks-to-the-indo-pacific-so-does-the-luftwaffe/>*
>
> *As Europe looks to the Indo-Pacific, so does the Luftwaffe*
> *Vivienne MachiNov 5, 2021*
>
> *STUTTGART, Germany ? The German Air Force is preparing to send fighters,
> tankers and transport aircraft across the world to the Asia-Pacific region
> in a little less than a year, as its colleagues in the European Union
> <https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/10/10/needed-a-transatlantic-agreement-on-european-strategic-autonomy/>
> continue
> to assess how the bloc should increase its involvement in the region.*
>
> *The Luftwaffe will deploy six Eurofighter aircraft, three Airbus A330
> tankers and three A400M transport aircraft in support of Australia?s Pitch
> Black exercise, scheduled for Sept. 5-23, 2022. The typically biennial
> exercise was canceled in 2020, and next year?s edition will be the first
> since 2018.*
>
> *Germany is ready to play a bigger role in the Indo-Pacific region, and
> will start with this initial sortie next fall before developing a more
> long-term plan, said Air Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz.*
>
> *This is the Air Force?s ?first and biggest deployment? of air assets to
> the Asia-Pacific region, Gerhartz said in an interview with Defense News in
> October at the Luftwaffe?s Neuburg Air Base in Bavaria.. ?It?s a strong
> signal to show our valued partners in the Indo-Pacific that we are with
> them.?*
>
> *The main hub for the 2022 deployment will be Australia, but details about
> the actual bases have yet to be confirmed, the Air Force said.*
>
> *The service also wants to integrate Singapore and Japan into the
> deployment exercise, a spokesperson wrote in an email to Defense News.*
>
> *Gerhartz expects to meet with some of his counterparts in the Indo-Pacific
> region in November during the Dubai International Air Chiefs Conference,
> and will make additional plans afterward.*
>
> *This air deployment would follow the August 2021 deployment of the German
> Navy frigate Bayern. The ship is to spend six months at sea, with stops
> planned in 12 different ports including in Djibouti, Karachi, Diego Garcia,
> Perth, Guam, Tokyo and Shanghai. However, news outlet Deutsche Welle
> reported in September that China rejected the planned Shanghai stopover
> ?after a period of reflection.?*
>
> *For now, Gerhartz is focused on planning the 2022 exercise, although he
> did not rule out the possibility that German air assets would return to the
> Indo-Pacific theater. ?I cannot foresee if there will be a permanent
> presence,? he said. ?But for me, it cannot just be: One year we are there,
> and then we are out.?*
>
> *A longer-term strategy may hinge on Berlin?s new coalition government
> between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats, as well as
> how the leaders of this new center-left government decide to approach the
> Indo-Pacific region.*
>
> *Such a deployment will be useful for Germany?s Air Force to hone its
> strengths, said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who serves as the
> Pershing chair in strategic studies at the Center for European Policy
> Analysis.*
>
> *?It?s useful for the German Air Force to do this to grow their own
> capability,? he told Defense News. ?You have to do some missions like this,
> where you go to the other side of the world.?*
>
> *But European allies could assist
> <https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/03/02/pentagon-pushes-to-partake-in-eu-military-mobility-planning/>
> its
> U.S. and Indo-Pacific partners more fruitfully by developing a ?cohesive,
> cooperative approach towards the Chinese Communist Party in terms of
> diplomacy and economic power,? he added.*
>
> *The Air Force?s deployment exercise is based on a series of policy
> guidelines for the region published by the German government in September
> 2020.*
>
> *?With the rise of Asia, the political and economic balance is increasingly
> shifting towards the Indo-Pacific,? the Luftwaffe spokesperson said. ?The
> region is becoming the key to shaping the international order in the 21st
> century.?*
>
> *A year after the policy guidelines were published, the objectives are
> beginning to be met, Germany?s Foreign Office said in a September 2021
> brief.*
>
> *During Germany?s presidency of the Council of the European Union, the
> bloc?s Asia relations were upgraded ?to the level of a strategic
> partnership in December 2020,? the brief stated. The nation has also
> extended its relationships with Australia and Japan, while opening up a
> regional German information center to expand public communications in the
> area.*
>
> *The EU published its first Indo-Pacific strategy in September 2021. From a
> security perspective, the strategy noted the union?s plans to deploy
> military advisers to EU delegations in the region ? currently to China and
> Indonesia ? and to establish an EU cyber diplomacy network. The strategy
> highlighted cybersecurity; counterterrorism; nuclear safety;
> nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; and
> information manipulation as security challenges where the EU wants to work
> more closely with its Indo-Pacific colleagues.*
>
> *Besides Germany, France and the Netherlands are the only other European
> nations to publish their own regional strategies. Paris first published
> strategies in 2018 and 2019, while Berlin and Amsterdam followed in
> September and November 2020, respectively.*
> *About Vivienne Machi*
>
> *Vivienne Machi is a reporter based in Stuttgart, Germany, contributing to
> Defense News' European coverage. She previously reported for National
> Defense Magazine, Defense Daily, Via Satellite, Foreign Policy and the
> Dayton Daily News. She was named the Defence Media Awards' best young
> defense journalist in 2020.*
>
> Share:
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/aabe8f05/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 13:28:21 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] A Japanese Seaplane Could Be the Difference-Maker for
> the U.S. Military
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQ=C01f9ABzwNEumLrxs9UOazVfoMMiCfjXaD1uvUh2M2g@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> A Japanese Seaplane Could Be the Difference-Maker for the U.S. Military -
> War on the Rocks
> <https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/a-japanese-seaplane-could-be-the-difference-maker-for-the-u-s-military/>
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/7cde8f54/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 14:02:35 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] Saudi Arabia: Shifting Alliances? . . . has recently
> made several exploratory moves beyond the boundaries of its
> relationship with Israel and several significant steps outside its
> relationship with the US.
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQm8G4hcRcYZnvVx1zxYGREicDQAyB_oOspf0k2iZdW8Tw@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> *https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2021/11/04/saudi-arabia-shifting-alliances/
> <https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2021/11/04/saudi-arabia-shifting-alliances/>*
>
> *Saudi Arabia: Shifting Alliances?*
> *Ted Snider <https://original.antiwar.com/author/ted_snider/>November 05,
> 2021*
>
> *In recent weeks, Saudi Arabia has made a number of subtle moves that are
> intriguing from both a regional and a broader Second Cold War perspective.
> Long a reliable friend of the US and, in recent years, an increasingly
> reliable friend of Israel, Saudi Arabia has recently made several
> exploratory moves beyond the boundaries of its relationship with Israel and
> several significant steps outside its relationship with the US.*
>
> *Regional Moves*
>
> *Saudi Arabia?s recent foreign policy moves within their own region suggest
> an intriguing and potentially significant shift in alliances in the Middle
> East. After aligning closer and closer with Israel, the other Sunni states
> and the US against Iran and after approving of, if not participating in,
> the Abraham Accords, Saudi Arabia is increasingly exploring relations with
> Iran. This stepping outside the steady relationship with Israel to
> increasingly, not only talking to, but dealing with Iran is a potentially
> significant change in the geopolitics of the Middle East.*
>
> *Saudi Arabia has never been willing to fight a war with Iran, but they
> would have loved to help push the US into fighting a war with Iran. That
> didn?t happen. Unable to defeat Iran, Saudi Arabia turned to exploring
> relations with Iran.*
>
> *Annelle Sheline, Research Fellow for the Middle East Program at the Quincy
> Institute, told me that Saudi Arabia?s move to reducing tension with Iran
> reflects their new despair of the US either prioritizing Saudi preferences
> or being willing to act as a guarantor of Saudi Arabia?s security. As
> reasons for the Saudi conclusion, Sheline says "From Obama?s signing of the
> JCPOA, to Trump?s lack of response after the September 2019 attacks on
> Saudi oil facilities, to Biden pulling out of Afghanistan, the past three
> US administrations have alarmed the Saudi rulers."*
>
> *The tentative steps towards Iran have so far taken four manifestations.
> Most importantly, the two enemies are talking. There was a time when just
> negotiating with, or even talking to, Iran was poison to Saudi Arabia. At
> the start of 2020, though, Saudi Arabia started talking to Iran. The talks
> have continued with the two having met several times, most recently at a
> regional summit in Baghdad
> <https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/mideast-leaders-plus-france-meet-baghdad-talk-security-diplomacy-2021-08-28/>
> at
> the end of August and a meeting on September 21. Reports are
> that Saudi-Iranian talks are, once again, set to resume
> <https://archive.vn/2uBOT> .*
>
> *The second manifestation goes beyond talk. Saudi Arabia and Iran have
> recently agreed to restart Iranian exports to Saudi Arabia
> <https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iran/17102021>. Saudi foreign
> minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud called
> <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-saudi-arabia-resumes-exports> trade
> talks between the two "cordial." If the ongoing negotiations are
> successful, Iran says there could be "a special development" in exports to
> Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has gone so far as to discuss helping Iran
> circumvent US sanctions
> <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-asks-saudi-arabia-help-sell-oil-exchange-end-houthi-attacks>.
> If that ever happened, it would represent a major shift in policy and
> allegiance. *
>
> *The third Saudi shift toward Iran is that Saudi Arabia, once solidly
> opposed to a nuclear agreement with Iran or even to negotiations with Iran,
> has signaled for the first time that they may be able to live with a
> nuclear deal with Iran
> <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-to-back-iran-nuclear-deal-if-tehran-never-gets-nuclear-weapons-saudi-foreign-minister/articleshow/85023336.cms>
> as
> long as it denies Iran nuclear weapons. That would be a significant shift
> away from Israel toward Iran. *
>
> *Finally, in another indication of warming relations, Iran has suggested
> that the two nations reopen their consulates
> <https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-push-end-yemen-war-030000826.html> in
> each other?s countries and re-establish diplomatic ties. *
>
> *Broader Cold War Moves*
>
> *In addition to regional moves away from Israel toward Iran, Saudi Arabia
> has made bold steps out of the US camp in the Second Cold War. These Cold
> War steps have involved turning toward Russia and China in at least three
> ways.*
>
> *The regional moves and broader Cold War moves are not wholly unrelated.
> Sheline told me that "investigating closer partnerships with other external
> players like China and Russia" also necessitates warming relations with
> Iran. "Neither China nor Russia will go along with Saudi desires to
> pressure Iran," Sheline said, so "the Saudis know that they?ll have to have
> a less combative relationship with Tehran if they hope to partner
> productively with Moscow or Beijing."*
>
> *One way that Saudi Arabia has warmed relations, not only with Iran, but
> simultaneously with Russia and China is by becoming a "dialogue partner"
> <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/19/iran-shanghai-cooperation-organisation>
> of
> the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on the same day Iran became a
> permanent member
> <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/19/iran-shanghai-cooperation-organisation>
> in
> an important move that went almost completely unreported. The SCO is a very
> important body that includes, amongst other nations, nuclear powers Russia,
> China, India and Pakistan. It is specifically intended as an economic and
> foreign policy counterweight to the US in an attempt to rebalance the US
> led unipolar world into a multipolar one. And that is the body that Saudi
> Arabia is dialoguing and partnering with.*
>
> *Saudi Arabia has also made significant moves towards both China and Russia
> bilaterally. Saudi Arabia?s moves toward China are diplomatic and economic.
> Saudi Arabia has been a "priority" in China?s Middle Eastern
> diplomacy, according to Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi
> <https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/china-says-ties-with-saudi-arabia-a-priority-in-its-middle-east-diplomacy/2395341>.
> Yi expressed a willingness "to be Saudi Arabia?s long-term, reliable and
> stable good friend and partner and, strikingly, characterized the
> China-Saudi Arabia relationship as a "comprehensive strategic partnership."
> In a statement that will alarm the US, China promised to "actively
> participate" in Saudi Arabia?s major development projects and further
> synergize Saudi Arabia into the Belt and Road Initiative. For their part,
> the Saudi foreign minister called China "a truly credible strategic
> partner."*
>
> *The Saudi moves toward Russia are military. On August 24, Saudi Arabia
> made the bold move of signing an agreement
> <https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-deputy-minister-defense-signs-military-cooperation-agreement-between-2021-08-23/>
> with
> Russia to develop joint military cooperation.*
>
> *All three of these moves toward Russia and China are bound to alarm the
> US, just as the moves toward Iran are bound to alarm both Israel and the
> US.*
>
> *Ted Snider <tedsnider@bell.net> has a graduate degree in philosophy and
> writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.*
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/7c0c08e2/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 14:07:44 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] I?m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why
> America?s ?Shipping Crisis? Will Not End
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQmjAew8LKUz8DP+sib3fzpMU_XnBavYC45OZ9x_7aTS3w@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-i-will-tell-you-why-america-s-shipping-crisis-will-not-end-bbe0ebac6a91
> I?m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America?s ?Shipping
> Crisis? Will Not End
> [image: Ryan JOHNSON]
> <https://medium.com/@ryan79z28?source=post_page-----bbe0ebac6a91----------------------------------->
>
> Ryan JOHNSON
> <https://medium.com/@ryan79z28?source=post_page-----bbe0ebac6a91----------------------------------->
>
> Oct 27?
> <https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-i-will-tell-you-why-america-s-shipping-crisis-will-not-end-bbe0ebac6a91?source=post_page-----bbe0ebac6a91----------------------------------->
>
> I have a simple question for every ?expert? who thinks they understand the
> root causes of the shipping crisis:
>
> Why is there only one crane for every 50?100 trucks at every port in
> America?
>
> No ?expert? will answer this question.
>
> I?m a Class A truck driver with experience in nearly every aspect of
> freight. My experience in the trucking industry of 20 years tells me that
> nothing is going to change in the shipping industry.
>
> Let?s start with understanding some things about ports. Outside of
> dedicated port trucking companies, most trucking companies won?t touch
> shipping containers. There is a reason for that.
>
> Think of going to the port as going to WalMart on Black Friday, but imagine
> only ONE cashier for thousands of customers. Think about the lines. Except
> at a port, there are at least THREE lines to get a container in or out. The
> first line is the ?in? gate, where hundreds of trucks daily have to pass
> through 5?10 available gates. The second line is waiting to pick up your
> container. The third line is for waiting to get out. For each of these
> lines the wait time is a minimum of an hour, and I?ve waited up to 8 hours
> in the first line just to get into the port. Some ports are worse than
> others, but excessive wait times are not uncommon. It?s a rare day when a
> driver gets in and out in under two hours. By ?rare day?, I mean maybe a
> handful of times a year. Ports don?t even begin to have enough workers to
> keep the ports fluid, and it doesn?t matter where you are, coastal or
> inland port, union or non-union port, it?s the same everywhere.
>
> Furthermore, I?m fortunate enough to be a Teamster ? a union driver ? an
> employee paid by the hour. Most port drivers are ?independent contractors?,
> leased onto a carrier who is paying them by the load. Whether their load
> takes two hours, fourteen hours, or three days to complete, they get paid
> the same, and they have to pay 90% of their truck operating expenses (the
> carrier might pay the other 10%, but usually less.) The rates paid to
> non-union drivers for shipping container transport are usually extremely
> low. In a majority of cases, these drivers don?t come close to my union
> wages. They pay for all their own repairs and fuel, and all truck related
> expenses. I honestly don?t understand how many of them can even afford to
> show up for work. There?s no guarantee of ANY wage (not even minimum wage),
> and in many cases, these drivers make far below minimum wage. In some cases
> they work 70 hour weeks and still end up owing money to their carrier.
>
> So when the coastal ports started getting clogged up last spring due to the
> impacts of COVID on business everywhere, drivers started refusing to show
> up. Congestion got so bad that instead of being able to do three loads a
> day, they could only do one. They took a 2/3 pay cut and most of these
> drivers were working 12 hours a day or more. While carriers were charging
> increased pandemic shipping rates, none of those rate increases went to the
> driver wages. Many drivers simply quit. However, while the pickup rate for
> containers severely decreased, they were still being offloaded from the
> boats. And it?s only gotten worse.
>
> Earlier this summer, both BNSF and Union Pacific Railways shut down their
> container yards in the Chicago area for a week for inbound containers.
> These are some of the busiest ports in the country. They had miles upon
> miles of stack (container) trains waiting to get in to be unloaded.
> According to BNSF, containers were sitting in the port 1/3 longer than
> usual, and they simply ran out of space to put them until some of the ones
> already on the ground had been picked up. Though they did reopen the area
> ports, they are still over capacity. Stack trains are still sitting loaded,
> all over the country, waiting to get into a port to unload. And they have
> to be unloaded, there is a finite number of railcars. Equipment shortages
> are a large part of this problem.
>
> One of these critical shortages is the container chassis.
>
> A container chassis is the trailer the container sits on. Cranes will load
> these in port. Chassis are typically container company provided, as
> trucking companies generally don?t have their own chassis units. They are
> essential for container trucking. While there are some privately owned
> chassis, there aren?t enough of those to begin to address the backlog of
> containers today, and now drivers are sitting around for hours, sometimes
> days, waiting for chassis.
>
> The impact of the container crisis now hitting residencies
> <https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/10/19/supply-chain-cargo-ship-bottleneck-port-los-angeles-long-beach/>
> in proximity to trucking companies. Containers are being pulled out of the
> port and dropped anywhere the drivers can find because the trucking company
> lots are full. Ports are desperate to get containers out so they can unload
> the new containers coming in by boat. When this happens there is no plan to
> deliver this freight yet, they are literally just making room for the next
> ship at the port. This won?t last long, as this just compounds the shortage
> of chassis. Ports will eventually find themselves unable to move containers
> out of the port until sitting containers are delivered, emptied, returned,
> or taken to a storage lot (either loaded or empty) and taken off the
> chassis there so the chassis can be put back into use. The priority is not
> delivery, the priority is just to clear the port enough to unload the next
> boat.
>
> What happens when a container does get to a warehouse?
>
> A large portion of international containers must be hand unloaded because
> the products are not on pallets. It takes a working crew a considerable
> amount of time to do this, and warehouse work is usually low wage. A lot of
> it is actually only temp staffed. Many full time warehouse workers got laid
> off when the pandemic started, and didn?t come back. So warehouses, like
> everybody else, are chronically short staffed.
>
> When the port trucker gets to the warehouse, they have to wait for a door
> (you?ve probably seen warehouse buildings with a bank of roll-up doors for
> trucks on one side of the building.) The warehouses are behind schedule,
> sometimes by weeks. After maybe a 2 hour wait, the driver gets a door and
> drops the container ? but now often has to pick up an empty, and goes back
> to the port to wait in line all over again to drop off the empty.
>
> At the warehouse, the delivered freight is unloaded, and it is usually
> separated and bound to pallets, then shipped out in much smaller quantities
> to final destination. A container that had a couple dozen pallets of goods
> on it will go out on multiple trailers to multiple different destinations a
> few pallets at a time.
>
>> From personal experience, what used to take me 20?30 minutes to pick up at
> a warehouse can now take three to four hours. This slowdown is warehouse
> management related: very few warehouses are open 24 hours, and even if they
> are, many are so short staffed it doesn?t make much difference, they are so
> far behind schedule. It means that as a freight driver, I cannot pick up as
> much freight in a day as I used to, and since I can?t get as much freight
> on my truck, the whole supply chain is backed up. Freight simply isn?t
> moving.
>
> It?s important to understand what the cost implications are for consumers
> with this lack of supply in the supply chain. It?s pure supply and demand
> economics. Consider volume shipping customers who primarily use ?general
> freight?, which is the lowest cost shipping and typically travels in a
> ?space available? fashion. They have usually been able to get their freight
> moved from origination to delivery within two weeks. Think about how you
> get your packages from Amazon. Even without paying for Prime, you usually
> get your stuff in a week. The majority of freight travels at this low cost,
> ?no guarantee of delivery date? way, and for the most part it?s been fine
> for both shippers and consumers. Those days are coming to an end.
>
> People who want their deliveries in a reasonable time are going to have to
> start paying premium rates. There will be levels of priority, and each
> increase in rate premium essentially jumps that freight ahead of all the
> freight with lower or no premium rates. Unless the lack of shipping
> infrastructure is resolved, things will back up in a cascading effect to
> the point where if your products are going general freight, you might wait
> a month or two for delivery. It?s already starting. If you use truck
> shipping in any way, you?ve no doubt started to see the delays. Think about
> what?s going to happen to holiday season shipping.
>
> What is going to compel the shippers and carriers to invest in the needed
> infrastructure? The owners of these companies can theoretically not change
> anything and their business will still be at full capacity because of the
> backlog of containers. The backlog of containers doesn?t hurt them. It
> hurts anyone paying shipping costs ? that is, manufacturers selling
> products and consumers buying products. But it doesn?t hurt the owners of
> the transportation business ? in fact the laws of supply and demand mean
> that they are actually going to make more money through higher rates,
> without changing a thing. They don?t have to improve or add infrastructure
> (because it?s costly), and they don?t have to pay their workers more
> (warehouse workers, crane operators, truckers).
>
> The ?experts? want to say we can do things like open the ports 24/7, and
> this problem will be over in a couple weeks. They are blowing smoke, and
> they know it. Getting a container out of the port, as slow and aggravating
> as it is, is really the easy part, if you can find a truck and chassis to
> haul it. But every truck driver in America can?t operate 24/7, even if the
> government suspends Hours Of Service Regulations (federal regulations
> determining how many hours a week we can work/drive), we still need to
> sleep sometime. There are also restrictions on which trucks can go into a
> port. They have to be approved, have RFID tags, port registered, and the
> drivers have to have at least a TWIC card (Transportation Worker
> Identification Credential from the federal Transportation Security
> Administration). Some ports have additional requirements. As I have already
> said, most trucking companies won?t touch shipping containers with a 100
> foot pole. What we have is a system with a limited amount of trucks and
> qualified drivers, many of whom are already working 14 hours a day
> (legally, the maximum they can), and now the supposed fix is to have them
> work 24 hours a day, every day, and not stop until the backlog is cleared.
> It?s not going to happen. It is not physically possible. There is no
> ?cavalry? coming. No trucking companies are going to pay to register their
> trucks to haul containers for something that is supposedly so ?short term,?
> because these same companies can get higher rate loads outside the ports.
> There is no extra capacity to be had, and it makes NO difference anyway,
> because If you can?t get a container unloaded at a warehouse, having
> drivers work 24/7/365 solves nothing.
>
> What it will truly take to fix this problem is to run EVERYTHING 24/7:
> ports (both coastal and domestic),trucks, and warehouses. We need tens of
> thousands more chassis, and a much greater capacity in trucking.
>
> Before the pandemic, through the pandemic, and really for the whole history
> of the freight industry at all levels, owners make their money by having
> low labor costs ? that is, low wages and bare minimum staffing. Many supply
> chain workers are paid minimum wages, no benefits, and there?s a high rate
> of turnover because the physical conditions can be brutal (there aren?t
> even bathrooms for truckers waiting hours at ports because the port owners
> won?t pay for them. The truckers aren?t port employees and port owners are
> only legally required to pay for bathroom facilities for their employees.
> This is a nationwide problem). For the whole supply chain to function
> efficiently every point has to be working at an equal capacity. Any point
> that fails bottlenecks the whole system. Right now, it?s ALL failing
> spectacularly TOGETHER, but fixing one piece won?t do anything. It ALL
> needs to be fixed, and at the same time.
>
> How do you convince truckers to work when their pay isn?t guaranteed, even
> to the point where they lose money?
>
> Nobody is compelling the transportation industries to make the needed
> changes to their infrastructure. There are no laws compelling them to hire
> the needed workers, or pay them a living wage, or improve working
> conditions. And nobody is compelling them to buy more container chassis
> units, more cranes, or more storage space. This is for an industry that
> literally every business in the world is reliant on in some way or another.
>
> My prediction is that nothing is going to change and the shipping crisis is
> only going to get worse. Nobody in the supply chain wants to pay to solve
> the problem. They literally just won?t pay to solve the problem. At the
> point we are at now, things are so backed up that the backups THEMSELVES
> are causing container companies, ports, warehouses, and trucking companies
> to charge massive rate increases for doing literally NOTHING. Container
> companies have already decreased the maximum allowable times before
> containers have to be back to the port, and if the congestion is so bad
> that you can?t get the container back into the port when it is due, the
> container company can charge massive late fees. The ports themselves will
> start charging massive storage fees for not getting containers out on time
> ? storage charges alone can run into thousands of dollars a day. Warehouses
> can charge massive premiums for their services, and so can trucking
> companies. Chronic understaffing has led to this problem, but it is
> allowing these same companies to charge ten times more for regular
> services. Since they?re not paying the workers any more than they did last
> year or five years ago, the whole industry sits back and cashes in on the
> mess it created. In fact, the more things are backed up, the more every
> point of the supply chain cashes in. There is literally NO incentive to
> change, even if it means consumers have to do holiday shopping in July and
> pay triple for shipping.
>
> This is the new normal. All brought to you by the ?experts? running our
> supply chains.
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/7b4fc5bf/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 10
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 15:35:00 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] Why I (Grudgingly) Voted Republican
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQn0Z9tE-K+gk+QWVhB48mwiJbia-E7pEGxKBkMMJ39YSg@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> [image: The Imaginative Conservative Logo]
> *Why I (Grudgingly) Voted Republican*
>
> By Joseph Mussomeli
> <https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/joseph-a-mussomeli>|
> November 4th, 2021
>
> There are many issues with which I still can find no common ground with
> either party. There are many other issues as well that neither party
> adequately and responsibly handle, but there is one issue that I simply
> could not ignore anymore: racism.
>
> Since 1972, I have always voted either for the Democratic candidate or my
> sister Susan. It didn?t matter what election was on the line, the
> warmongering, pro-rich, environmentally clueless, elitist Republicans were
> just too much for me to tolerate. However, by 2016 I had lost faith in the
> Democrats, but remained unable to vote for the Republicans. I genuinely
> believed it immoral to for me to do so. If only Susan had won those 2016
> and 2020 presidential elections, we would all be so better off! But here it
> is 2021, and the Virginia governor race compelled me to do what I could
> never bring myself to do in nearly half a century: Vote Republican.
>
> There are many issues with which I still can find no common ground with
> either party. On immigration, the Republicans are too cold-hearted and the
> Democrats too irresponsible. On war-mongering, the Republicans too often
> want to remake the world in our image while the Democrats (almost as bad)
> keep wanting to save the world. On fiscal discipline and burgeoning
> budgets, both parties have shown a shameless hypocrisy that should
> embarrass us all. I?m still not sure which is worse: the tax-and-spend
> Democrats or the spend-and-don?t-tax Republicans. There are many other
> issues as well that neither party adequately and responsibly handle, but
> there is one issue that I simply could not ignore anymore: racism.
>
> Since my earliest days of political awakening, watching Martin Luther King
> speak during the great March on Washington in 1963 when I was only 11 years
> old, I have believed that countering racism is the most crucial, most
> important issue facing our country. Sitting in front of my grandmother?s
> black-and-white television in her row house on the westside of New York
> City that hot, humid August day, I understood that we could only survive as
> a nation if we could come together as one nation, black and white (and all
> the other hues) of our unique country, founded on ideals and principles
> that placed our aspirations, if not yet our reality, way above those of
> every other country on earth. And it was clear to me at that time that it
> would be the Democrats who would lead us out of the fear and hatred and
> elitism of that time and inspire a new generation of Americans who would
> not judge each ?by the color of their skin but by the content of their
> character.?
>
> For decades, that seemed the truth. But no longer. Now it is the
> Democrats?far from all of them, but still far too many of them?who are the
> standard bearers of racism. There remain too great a number of hateful
> racists on the far Right, but the burgeoning number of clueless racists on
> the Left has become overwhelming and now pose a greater threat to our
> nation than those of the extreme Right. The Democrats as a party no longer
> embrace equality; instead, the party now substitutes the term equity.
> Equity?once not so long ago a word that conveyed a sense of fairness and
> compassion?has now been rendered a euphemism for racism, much like the term
> ?states? rights? was coopted by earlier racists to hide their racist
> intent. And certainly, equity as a means to level the playing field and
> ensure that a socially and economically disadvantaged individual is given a
> better chance is still laudable. But as a party the Democrats no longer
> believe in the individual, they no longer believe that everyone is equal
> and should be given an equal chance at success. I suspect that deep down
> that many of them no longer believe that minorities can really compete
> equally with whites (and increasingly with Asians). They will offer lots of
> excuses?broken families, poverty, poor school districts, violence,
> diversity?to justify their view, but they distressingly sound like the
> racists of long ago trying to justify segregation and apartheid.
>
> To reiterate, any child who comes from a broken family or a poor
> neighborhood should be given additional benefits and consideration to level
> the playing field with the richer children who come from better school
> systems, but those are socio-economic considerations, not racial ones. Of
> course, poorer children cannot fairly compete against those who have lived
> lives of greater privilege. But the Democrats blur the lines and are unable
> to see the disturbing danger to our society when an upper-middle-class
> Hispanic or African-American student has an easier time getting into an Ivy
> League university than a lower-middle-class white or Asian student. Or when
> a less-qualified job applicant gets a job simply because the mindless
> mantra of diversity trumps all other considerations. Democrats used to
> believe fervently that race did not matter and that it was only the
> individual who mattered: that we were all equal under the law and that any
> idea or concept that threatened individual merit was anathema to the
> American way of life. But that sadly no longer is true. Far sadder is the
> truth that most Democrats who harbor these beliefs?again like old racists
> of yore?would vehemently deny that they are racists at all.
>
> Decades ago, Ronald Reagan, a then-lifelong Democrat, declared that he
> never left the Democratic party, but that it had left him. At the time, I
> shook my head in disgust and concluded that Reagan had sold out to business
> interests and our increasingly bloated military-industrial complex. In
> truth, I still believe his departure from the Democrat party was premature.
> But now, when my political party of the last half-century has clearly
> thrown in its lot with the forces of racism against the individual, I
> grudgingly accept his view. Whether the Democrats left me or I left them,
> it doesn?t much matter. I still miss the old Democrats, like Martin Luther
> King and millions of others, who believed in the intrinsic and infinite
> worth of the individual over the group, but they too would be denounced by
> today?s Democratic Party. I?m a long way from ever embracing the
> Republicans; they still have too many political warts. True to form for
> both parties, I suspect that the Republicans will now take another lethal
> dose of hubris and triumphalism and alienate too many Americans who want
> something better from both political parties. But I?m not too concerned.
>
> I can always vote again for my sister in 2024.
>
> The Imaginative Conservative* applies the principle of appreciation to the
> discussion of culture and politics?we approach dialogue with magnanimity
> rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis
> in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please
> consider donating now
> <https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=5XB3QPV5AHZ98>.*
> <https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftheimaginativeconservative.org%2F2021%2F11%2Fwhy-i-grudgingly-voted-republican-joseph-mussomeli.html&t=Why%20I%20%28Grudgingly%29%20Voted%20Republican>
> <https://www.tumblr.com/share/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheimaginativeconservative.org%2F2021%2F11%2Fwhy-i-grudgingly-voted-republican-joseph-mussomeli.html&name=Why%20I%20%28Grudgingly%29%20Voted%20Republican&description=There%20are%20many%20issues%20with%20which%20I%20still%20can%20find%20no%20common%20ground%20with%20either%20party.%20There%20are%20many%20other%20issues%20as%20well%20that%20neither%20party%20adequately%20and%20responsibly%20handle%2C%20but%20there%20is%20one%20issue%20that%20I%20simply%20could%20not%20ignore%20anymore%3A%20racism.>
> About the Author: Joseph Mussomeli
> <https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/joseph-a-mussomeli>
> Joseph Mussomeli is Senior Contributor at *The Imaginative Conservative*.
> He served for almost thirty-five years as an American diplomat, including
> tours in Egypt, Afghanistan, Morocco, and the Philippines. He was the U.S.
> ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia and the Kingdom of Cambodia. Before
> entering the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980, he worked as a Deputy Attorney
> General in New Jersey.
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/5d1bbd72/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 11
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 15:42:47 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] The Limits of Saudi-Iranian D?tente
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQmZOv5woRsahH_mOXU01RtLe4UZ_HjKWkaWX9TQpWSiBQ@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-limits-of-saudi-iranian-detente/?utm_source=pocket_mylist&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=opec_sticks_to_production_plan_defies_us_pressure_for_more_oil_lower_prices&utm_term=2021-11-05
> The Limits of Saudi-Iranian D?tente
> Oct 29, 2021
> Daniel Brumberg <https://arabcenterdc.org/team/daniel-brumberg>
>
> During his years in the Nixon White House in the 1970s, former Secretary of
> State Henry Kissinger sought to manage the US-Soviet rivalry by creating
> arenas of engagement he hoped would advance the American effort to contain
> Moscow?s regional and global ambitions. The Soviet Union?s aims were no
> different. For both countries, the goal of d?tente, as the French word
> signifies, was to ?relax tensions? while sustaining competition.
>
> The recent if still nascent quest of Iran and Saudi Arabia to move from a
> cold conflict (and sometimes hot, if indirect) to d?tente also points to a
> diplomatic strategy whose ultimate purpose is to win time and maximum
> advantage. Tehran and Riyadh could reap strategic, diplomatic, and economic
> advantages from not only reestablishing diplomatic relations but also from
> initiating talks designed to find some common ground on a host of issues,
> not least of which is the war in Yemen and the role Houthi forces play.
>
> But given its regional posture?and the widespread (if probably erroneous)
> perception
> <https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1203/423993/AlAhram-Weekly/World/No-white-smoke-in-IranSaudi-talks.aspx>
> that following the withdrawal from Afghanistan a US departure from the Gulf
> is now inevitable?Iran seems well positioned to maneuver talks with Riyadh
> to its advantage. Iran?s recent request
> <https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-push-end-yemen-war-030000826.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall>
> that the two countries reopen their consulates in Mashhad and Jeddah, as a
> ?sign of good will,?* before *any move to end the war in Yemen underscores
> Tehran?s confidence. It also suggests that despite the hopes
> <https://www.rt.com/op-ed/538487-saudi-iranian-reconciliation-end-diplomacy/>
> of some western leaders that Saudi-Iranian talks could be a game changer,
> the prospects for significant diplomatic progress will remain modest. This
> outcome could ultimately be acceptable?or at least tolerable?to both Riyadh
> and Tehran.
> Tactics and Strategy
>
> Two seemingly contradictory but ultimately compatible logics are driving
> the recent efforts to advance d?tente between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The
> first is the logic of improvisation: the leaders of both countries are
> making it up as they go along. Their chief concern being regime survival,
> they must demonstrate a capacity for adaptability at home and abroad. Such
> tactical concerns present Iranian leaders with the task of forging
> consensus on the key foreign policy challenges. This is no simple matter
> because on several vital issues, not least of which is the Joint
> Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), there seems to be no small amount of
> confusion. It is therefore wise for the new and largely untested leadership
> team in Tehran to keep juggling several balls, one of which is the Saudi
> question.
>
> It is wise for the new and largely untested leadership team in Tehran to
> keep juggling several balls, one of which is the Saudi question.
>
> For Riyadh, forging consensus is perhaps less complicated because there is
> only one voice that really matters: that of Crown Prince Mohammed bin
> Salman (MbS). But he has far less political and geostrategic room to
> maneuver than his Iranian counterparts. In the immediate neighborhood,
> Saudi Arabia still faces a determined Houthi enemy, while in the wider
> global arena, Riyadh is yet to figure out its relations with the Biden
> Administration (and vice versa). By contrast, Tehran has diplomatic,
> strategic, and economic assets throughout the Middle East. Moreover, it
> might be prepared to forgo the effort to save the JCPOA and focus its
> sights on consolidating its array of relationships in the wider region and
> beyond. Indeed, Iran has the upper hand. And even if it does return to the
> negotiating table, it has opposed?and will continue adamantly to
> resist?linking these talks to its regional strategic posture.
>
> This imposing reality brings us to the second logic, and that is strategic.
> Iran?s leaders have long shared the conviction
> <https://mei.nus.edu.sg/think_in/iraq-abraham-accords-event-stokes-iranian-fears-of-israeli-encirclement/>
> that the ultimate objective of Tehran?s regional and global enemies is to
> lay economic, diplomatic, and (if need be) military siege to the Islamic
> Republic. This perception animates Tehran?s resolve to weaken the threat of
> ?encirclement? by forging a diverse set of relationships that give Iran the
> capacity to impose varying degrees of pain on its opponents. Riyadh views
> this strategy as offensive rather than defensive. In its bid to deter what
> Riyadh sees as Iran?s ?expansionist
> <https://www.eaglenews.ph/saudi-king-urges-iran-to-quit-harmful-expansionism/>?
> or hegemonic aspirations, it has depended on the US military umbrella.
> Riyadh?s escalation of the war with the Houthis signaled a bid by MbS to
> push back against Iran by striking at its closest regional ally.
>
> But the policy has backfired
> <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/saudi-arabias-crown-princes-war-backfiring-90031>,
> thus signaling not only the limits
> <https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/saudi-leverage-not-enough-achieve-peace-yemen>
> of Saudi Arabia?s military might but also the absence of any coherent
> strategy for addressing Iran. That Riyadh is improvising on both the
> tactical and strategic levels gives Iran a real advantage that Saudi Arabia
> is unlikely to remedy, even if it tries to compensate by bandwagonning on
> the ?Abraham Accords? between Israel, the Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco
> (and Sudan, although that agreement may now be in jeopardy following the
> recent coup).
> Iranian Hard-liners Try to Figure It Out
>
> With the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the helm and President
> Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian manning the
> sails and rudder, it is reasonable to expect that Iranian foreign policy
> should reflect a common map and course trajectory. The perception that
> Iranian hard-line leaders are united?and thus able to respond more
> coherently to the diplomatic challenges, in contrast to the divided
> government of former President Hassan Rouhani?has apparently played a role
> in motivating Saudi leaders to pursue talks with Tehran.
>
> If Iran?s foreign policy team agrees on the big picture, it appears that
> they have been improvising?and perhaps disagreeing?when it comes to key
> foreign policy decisions, including the fate the JCPOA.
>
> Still, if Iran?s foreign policy team agrees on the big picture, it appears
> that they have been improvising?and perhaps disagreeing?when it comes to
> key foreign policy decisions, including the fate the JCPOA. Over the past
> weeks, multiple signals about when and whether Tehran might rejoin the
> Vienna talks have prompted criticism
> <https://amwaj.media/media-monitor/iran-s-confusing-foreign-policy-raises-concerns-over-nuclear-talks>
> from various quarters, including the reformist oriented *Aftab-e Yazd*
> newspaper, whose chief editor on October 18 complained of a ?confusing
> policy.? The economic newspaper *Jahan-e Sanat* offered a similar
> assessment when it argued that the government had created ?nuclear
> confusion.? Adding salt to the wound, a senior member
> <https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2021/10/17/668702/Amir-Abdollahian-Iran-Parliament-Alireza-Salimi-JCPOA-action-strategic-law-sanctions-Afghanistan-Azerbaijan-Shahriar-Heidari>
> of the Iranian Majlis has asserted that the foreign minister?s policy
> echoed the ?action for action? approach that Iranian hard-liners criticized
> during the last months of the Rouhani government.
>
> Beyond the domestic arena, these criticisms of Tehran?s improvised
> diplomacy will surely shape the perceptions of key regional and global
> players. After all, whether Iran ultimately decides to pursue the JCPOA
> talks is of no small consequence for Iran?s friends and foes alike. Echoing
> this point, Russia?s envoy to the Vienna talks has openly criticized
> <https://twitter.com/Amb_Ulyanov/status/1451968841001709575?s=20> Iranian
> leaders for promising to return to the talks ?soon.? What, he asked, can
> that ?mean in practical terms??
>
> For Saudi Arabia, the answer is critical. If a return to the talks?which
> Iranian leaders have now suggested is possible?leads to a revived JCPOA
> that provides for removing nuclear related sanctions, and yet offers no
> provisions for wider talks on regional security, Tehran?s leverage in any
> talks with Riyadh will be greatly enhanced. Saudi Arabia could thus be
> under increased pressure to make concessions on vital issues such as the
> Houthi campaign in Yemen. By contrast, if the nuclear talks fail to
> materialize and US-Iranian tensions increase, Riyadh might be under less
> pressure from Washington to pursue diplomacy with Tehran or to revive talks
> with the Houthis. Still, given Iran?s strategic presence in the region and
> recent Houthi military advances
> <https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-advance-shabwa-marib-2021-10-17/>
> in Yemen?s energy-rich regions of Shabwa and Marib, a failure of diplomacy
> would not necessarily work to Riyadh?s advantage.
> Yemen, the JCPOA, and the Diplomatic Waiting Game
>
> Reiterating Iran?s confidence, Abbas Neil Foroshan, who serves as the
> assistant for operational affairs in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
> (IRGC), stated on October 14 that Saudi Arabia has no choice but to
> negotiate a conclusion of the Yemen war. Because the ?enemy,? he declared
> <https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211014-iranian-military-official-negotiation-is-the-only-way-for-the-saudis-to-end-the-war-in-yemen/>,
> ?cannot defeat the Yemeni resistance front,? the ?wisest way is to reach a
> peaceful agreement.? Not surprisingly, the Saudi position is that Iran must
> first end its support for Houthi militias before any meaningful talks
> between Tehran and Riyadh could advance.
>
> The Saudi position is that Iran must first end its support for Houthi
> militias before any meaningful talks between Tehran and Riyadh could
> advance.
>
> Presumably, the two sides began staking out these positions during their
> September 21st meeting
> <https://politicalanthropologist.com/2021/10/10/yemen-talks-between-saudi-arabia-and-iran-offer-hopes-for-an-end-to-bitter-seven-year-civil-war/>
> at Baghdad?s international airport. With Iraq continuing to serve as the
> crucial mediator, reports
> <https://amwaj.media/article/exclusive-iran-saudi-arabia-agree-on-creating-mechanism-to-end-yemen-war-restore>
> suggest that Saudi and Iranian diplomats created a tentative framework for
> addressing the Yemen conflict. But as one analyst notes
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/will-saudi-arabia-and-iran-make-peaceover-yemen/2021/10/14/c5b3f72e-2cb4-11ec-b17d-985c186de338_story.html>,
> Iran ?still has to prove it has real influence over the Houthis?at least
> enough to make them sit down for peace talks.? If, as suggested here,
> Tehran?s capacity to push Houthi forces to the negotiating table were in
> fact limited, its capacity to leverage the Yemen conflict for its strategic
> advantage may also be constrained. This prospect will surely influence the
> calculation of Saudi leaders, who will wonder if Tehran has the political
> will or even the means to deliver on the Houthis.
>
> The significance of these contending calculations will ultimately rest on
> the course of US-Iranian relations and the fate of the JCPOA. Recent
> statements
> <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/27/iran-says-vienna-nuclear-talks-to-resume-by-end-of-november>
> by Iranian negotiators that talks will resume in Vienna by the end of
> November could indicate a real desire to get back to the negotiating table.
> They could also constitute a tactical maneuver designed to win Tehran time,
> now that it has been vigorously criticized by the International Atomic
> Energy Agency for further expanding its enrichment program in ways that the
> head of the IAEA has warned
> <https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/2021/10/24/un-nuclear-watchdog-warns-of-breakdown-in-monitoring-iran/>
> could lead to a total breakdown of the United Nations? monitoring mechanism
> of Iran?s nuclear facilities. This prospect surely helps to explain the
> White House?s cautious, if not skeptical, response
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-skeptical-iran-ready-to-restart-nuclear-talks/2021/10/27/ca41cdf4-376b-11ec-9662-399cfa75efee_story.html>
> to the recent statement by Iranian officials. As noted above, Iranian
> leaders are still trying to work out where they ultimately stand on this
> crucial question.
> Treading Water
>
> At the end of the day, both Iran and Saudi Arabia will benefit from a
> process of d?tente which, if it advances, could provide substantial
> economic benefits. Paradoxically, a return to the JCPOA talks?and along
> with that, the prospects for increased Iranian oil exports?may be putting
> an end to a recent oil rally
> <https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-edges-lower-mixed-industry-052748131.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall>
> that had sent the price of crude oil to $85 a barrel
> <https://finance.yahoo.com/news/brent-oil-rises-above-85-233358384.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall>.
> At the same time, if talks restart and advance, then Iran might also
> increase its exports. Yet if Iran might have much to gain from a sustained
> effort to advance the Vienna talks, its hard-liner government remains
> profoundly?and perhaps understandably?skeptical that the Biden
> Administration would honor any commitments it makes at the negotiating
> table.
>
> Thus, whether by design or default, the confusion occasioned by the various
> promises and statements made by Iranian leaders on the JCPOA talks works
> far more to the favor of Tehran than Riyadh. As they try to make up their
> minds and keep their options open, Iran?s hard-liners could create more
> space to maneuver by pursuing a d?tente with Saudi Arabia that might very
> well go nowhere fast. Hoping to end the conflict in Yemen but unsure of
> whether this could really happen, Saudi leaders also have an interest in
> relaxing relations with Tehran. At the very least, an incremental process
> of d?tente might lower political and strategic temperatures in the Gulf
> while winning a measure of support from western leaders. In the Gulf, as
> elsewhere, d?tente is more about managing rather than transcending
> conflicts.
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/0202340e/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 12
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 16:04:40 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] To expand the Navy isn't enough. We need a bigger
> commercial fleet.
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQ=cAH76f9CxbA=WwdqLHa3dWke1k2TPmfQ4_XTC2Ns3Dw@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/11/04/to-expand-the-navy-isnt-enough-we-need-a-bigger-commercial-fleet/?utm_campaign=Foreign%20Policy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=179332694&utm_source=hs_email
> To expand the Navy isn?t enough. We need a bigger commercial fleet. Jeremy
> Greenwood <https://www.brookings.edu/author/jeremy-greenwood/> and Emily
> Miletello <https://www.brookings.edu/author/emily-miletello/> Thursday,
> November 4, 2021
>
> With the United States drawing down in the Middle East and starting to
> realize the long-awaited ?pivot to the Pacific
> <https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-american-pivot-to-asia/>,? Chinese
> naval expansion
> <https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-challenge-of-chinas-rising-power-on-the-seas-11631808521>
> and the troubling practices of Chinese distant-water fishing fleets
> <https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/01/25/the-national-security-imperative-to-tackle-illegal-unreported-and-unregulated-fishing/>
> have risen to the top of the list of global and national security
> concerns plaguing
> our top strategists
> <https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/10/28/china-is-definitely-on-the-rise-but-dont-write-off-american-dominance-just-yet/>.
> And while much has been written
> <https://www.brookings.edu/research/chinas-indian-ocean-ambitions/> on
> Chinese military ambitions at sea, we seem to have forgotten Beijing?s
> commercial maritime activity, which has also increased dramatically, in
> terms of both shipbuilding and investments in port infrastructure around
> the globe. At the same time, the number of U.S. vessels engaged in global
> commerce has never been smaller
> <https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2021/10/08/dwindling-us-merchant-fleet-is-a-crisis-waiting-to-happen/?sh=44cd87152a8d>.
> In the words of a senior official responsible for America?s sealift
> capability, this is no less than a ?screaming national security
> vulnerability.?
> America?s commercial fleet is languishing
>
> In the midst of negotiations surrounding one of the largest infrastructure
> spending bills
> <https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2021/08/05/the-senate-infrastructure-bill-puts-america-closer-to-another-new-deal/>
> in decades, there has been almost no serious discussion about the need to
> enhance our commercial sealift capabilities or to increase American
> shipbuilding capacity. Instead, America?s maritime infrastructure
> <https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/may/us-merchant-marine-and-world-maritime-review>
> continues to be overlooked and our commercial fleet continues to fall
> behind those of our maritime competitors. We have been prolific in building
> U.S. Navy warships <https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/RL32665.pdf>, but have
> failed to invest even modestly in the civilian maritime industries that
> will support our warfighting capabilities.
>
> The United States is an inherently maritime nation. Yet, U.S. flagged
> vessels make up only 0.4% of the world?s vessels (yes, that?s 0.4%, not
> 4%). As of July 2021, that?s about 180 ships out of a global fleet of more
> than 43,000
> <https://www.bts.gov/content/number-and-size-us-flag-merchant-fleet-and-its-share-world-fleet>.
> If you?ve ever sailed on a cruise ship, you likely were on a vessel
> registered in the Bahamas, Panama, or Liberia. If you?ve ever looked out at
> any of America?s largest ports, you probably only saw vessels flying the
> flag of Panama, Marshall Islands, Hong Kong (which maintains a separate
> registry for now), or more than ever ? China.
> Why many American ships don?t fly U.S. flags
>
> ?Open registries? ? a concept unique to global shipping
> <https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Legal/Pages/Registration-of-ships-and-fraudulent-registration-matters.aspx>
> ? allow any ship owner to register its vessel in a nation with which it has
> practically no ties, to take advantage of low taxes, less regulation, and
> cheap labor. In the high-stakes and competitive world of global shipping,
> seeking out a cheaper flag state ? often referred to as a ?flag of
> convenience
> <https://www.itfglobal.org/en/sector/seafarers/flags-of-convenience>? ? can
> save a company millions. Starting with the first wave of globalization
> after World War II, ?flags of convenience? quickly became a standard
> business practice in the shipping industry
> <https://www.jstor.org/stable/20712925>, removing almost any incentive to
> build and operate an American ship outside of the small market of those
> required to conduct domestic trade (the ?Jones Act? fleet
> <https://www.maritime.dot.gov/sites/marad.dot.gov/files/2021-04/DS_USFlag-Fleet_2021_0316_Bundle.pdf>,
> which must, with limited exception, be U.S. crewed, owned, and registered).
> A consequence of this shift is that our nation lost much of its industrial
> capability
> <https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/strengthening-the-u.s-defense-maritime-industrial-base-a-plan-to-improve-maritime-industrys-contribution-to-national-security>
> to build, maintain and repair large ocean-going vessels, and with it, the
> large-scale training and education of U.S. Merchant Mariners.
> The role of U.S. commercial ships in national security
>
> Even with the world?s most dominant Navy, access to a U.S. flagged
> commercial fleet is critical to our national security. In a 1989 National
> Security Directive on Sealift <https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=458560>
> (?sealift? is the use of cargo ships for military transport), the White
> House outlined the importance of maintaining a U.S.-flagged fleet, calling
> it ?essential both to executing this country?s forward defense strategy and
> to maintaining a wartime economy? and necessary to build surge capacity to
> ?ensure that sufficient military and civil maritime resources will be
> available to meet defense deployment and essential economic requirements in
> support of our national security strategy.?
>
> Yet today, the agency in charge of managing our nation?s maritime sealift
> capability, the Maritime Administration
> <https://www.maritime.dot.gov/national-security/strategic-sealift/strategic-sealift>
> (or MARAD), is woefully underfunded and managing an aging fleet
> <https://news.usni.org/2020/03/12/lawmakers-question-marad-on-sealift-readiness>
> of vessels that may not be up to the job
> <https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/the-ready-reserve-force-is-in-urgent-need-of-funding>
> of moving and sustaining our Armed Forces in an increasingly competitive
> Asia-Pacific theater of operations. Let?s remember that any conflict in the
> Pacific will not be sustained by the Navy alone. Our land forces rely on
> military and civilian sealift capability to fight abroad, and it is not
> clear
> <https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/12/31/the-us-military-ran-the-largest-stress-test-of-its-sealift-fleet-in-years-its-in-big-trouble/>
> that we could sustain a land force in the Pacific with our current sealift
> capability.
>
> Recognizing the defense imperative of sealift capabilities, the combatant
> command <https://www.ustranscom.mil/> responsible for coordinating the
> military?s overseas transportation requirements recently announced
> <https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/pentagon-s-logistics-agency-is-laser-focused-on-buying-foreign-ships>
> that buying foreign vessels and re-flagging them under the U.S. flag is its
> top priority. But while buying used foreign ships from allies is a good
> start, it is not a solution or a long-term strategy. It?s clear we need a
> more permanent investment in our maritime infrastructure. In congressional
> testimony last year
> <https://www.transportation.gov/testimony/sealift-and-mobility-requirements-support-national-defense-strategy>,
> then MARAD Administrator Rear Adm. Mark Buzby (ret.) noted that in the
> 1990s there were seven large shipyards in the United States building
> commercial vessels. Since then, three of the yards have closed. Of the
> remaining four, only one builds commercial vessels and the others do only
> repairs and maintenance.
> China?s rising maritime power
>
> Meanwhile, China is rapidly expanding its maritime reach
> <https://www.brookings.edu/articles/xi-jinping-and-chinas-maritime-policy/>
> through both naval and commercial enterprises. The size and growth of the
> Chinese navy, coast guard, and long-distance fishing fleets (including the
> so-called ?maritime militia
> <https://www.rand.org/blog/2020/04/a-short-history-of-chinas-fishing-militia-and-what.html>?)
> has been well documented
> <https://www.brookings.edu/books/chinas-maritime-gray-zone-operations/>.
> However, Chinese investment in civilian shipbuilding and in strategic port
> and maritime infrastructure around the world is less well known.
>
> China builds over 40% of large ocean-going vessels
> <https://stats.unctad.org/handbook/MaritimeTransport/MerchantFleet.html>
> manufactured globally each year (over 1,000 per year, compared to
> approximately 10 per year in the U.S
> <https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2021/07/23/us-shipbuilding-is-at-its-lowest-ebb-ever-how-did-america-fall-so-far/?sh=42454f56c87a>.).
> Not only that, but Beijing also registers a significant number of these
> vessels under the Chinese flag (4,569 as of January 1, 2020
> <https://stats.unctad.org/handbook/MaritimeTransport/MerchantFleet.html>).
>
> As of 2021, China maintains an ownership stake in at least 30 of the 50
> largest container ports
> <https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol74/iss1/11/> in the world,
> and has been taking advantage of pandemic-related economic challenges to
> establish footholds in some of the hardest hit economies, like Panama,
> whose economy shrunk by about 18%
> <https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/panama/overview#:~:text=Panama's%20Gross%20Domestic%20Product%20(GDP,(21.2%20%25%20in%202020).>
> in 2020. Considering that the U.S. is the primary user and beneficiary of
> the Panama Canal, (over 60% of goods
> <https://www.csis.org/analysis/key-decision-point-coming-panama-canal>
> transiting the canal are destined for U.S. ports) increased Chinese control
> over port infrastructure surrounding the canal could constitute a serious
> threat to our supply chain. This economic investment comes with strings
> attached. Not coincidentally, after signing a memorandum of agreement with
> the Panama Canal Authority in 2017, Panama dropped
> <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40256499> its diplomatic
> recognition of Taiwan.
>
> In short, China seems to have learned a lesson from American naval
> strategist Admiral Alfred Mahan
> <https://chinafocus.ucsd.edu/2014/07/14/china-looking-mahanian-way-quest-blue-water-navy/>
> that America seems to have forgotten: ?[C]ontrol of the sea, by maritime
> commerce and naval supremacy, means predominant world influence.?
> Why the lack of U.S. commercial ships presents a security risk
>
> With the withdrawal from Afghanistan complete, the long-awaited pivot to
> the Pacific might actually be taking shape. The AUKUS submarine agreement
> <https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/09/21/australias-nuclear-submarines-and-aukus-the-view-from-jakarta/>
> most recently highlighted the critical state of the maritime theater of
> operations in maintaining a ?free and open Indo-Pacific
> <https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Free-and-Open-Indo-Pacific-4Nov2019.pdf>.?
> However, we can?t be so na?ve as to think that a military buildup alone
> will win in this new era of strategic competition. Increasing shipbuilding
> capability and investing in the American commercial fleet would not only
> mitigate threats to our supply chain, but would also serve as an important
> hedge to China?s increasingly pervasive and aggressive maritime ambitions.
> As it stands now, our reliance on foreign vessels for critical trade is a
> national security risk both in terms of our inability to engage in
> sustained conflict abroad should that become necessary, but also in terms
> of supply chain vulnerabilities that will continue to plague us at home.
>
> We need not, and of course cannot, end globalization to protect our supply
> chain. But we can drastically increase the number of U.S. flagged merchant
> vessels sailing the world?s oceans and strengthen our domestic shipbuilding
> base to preserve our freedom of action in times of crisis. Without the
> ability to move and sustain our forces by sea wherever and whenever needed
> ? a major deterrent against aggression ? the U.S. (and its allies) will
> lose the capacity to ensure regional stability and peace.
>
> This maritime nation should not outsource its maritime needs. Continuing to
> do so requires that we rely on flag states that are increasingly vulnerable
> to the influence of foreign adversaries, most notably China. We must invest
> in our Merchant Marine and shipbuilding capability now, and undertake
> meaningful legislative efforts to make the U.S., at the very least, a less
> inconvenient flag state.
>
> *The views expressed herein do not represent those of the U.S. Government
> or Brookings Institution and are solely the authors? personal viewpoint.*
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/5d2777b6/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 13
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 16:09:26 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] #PizzaIsNotWorking: Inside the Pharmacist Rebellion
> at CVS and Walgreens
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQkJ8wpBVwLoZx2-17FRqX56kRN194OoWq-S9wJfZsYgrQ@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkk1vozAQhn9NuBX5AwgcfMi2SUVUklSqmu4JOWZCHMBGtimFX79OsoddyfZo3vmS_IzgDmptJtZr64LbU7qpB6ZgtC04ByYYLJhSVoySZUIJCioWVTiN00Da8mwAOi5b5swAQT-cWim4k1rdCjCOSRRcWFVhIQgl0TnLeJplGcaEn0kSU8IjxJePsXyoJCgBDL7BTFpB0LKLc71d0NWCbPzpuHPW6bYFE9rhZB0XTSh050P97cp55tIq7UZtGqnqJ6msrODJXeCpv3DTcSGtW9CN0w2oBX2BaYsF-Zy-SNvkVz0XV0GKOR_fnrfjie7QXx0V83u8m1fRTo6SHzfIaz-7a0GKjxztXwri83tBC7mX27E65q74WOPi-i69Pnv_rt_6vX1t29_HHeLHbMgVCrdoXJn8m8TrsjDplC-bX23zzA9mta8P1fi5acvX16ieD3YdSEYQwRijGMcoibKQhLDMxDmNRIKTM8EkDRs9n_RPHS8i1NXkvz8KDOukuIBn2gA3CiafVN_Q3aOeXOltNyjpphIUP7VQPaC6x2rcMZc1KDB-ZaqSO4YTmmASpTShafqA6KlHNMqWKE0CP77Svkqxf8D9AXXG1DU>
>
> *You're on the free list for BIG. Every paid subscriber makes it easier for
> me to expose monopolists. Please consider becoming
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkMtuhSAQhp9GlkYuIi5YdHNegyCMHnIUDIxt7dMXj5s2mcwlc8v3O4uwpHzqPRUklzN47qAjfJUVECGTo0A2wWvOBslZR7wWnqpekVDMnAE2G1aN-QCyH9ManMWQ4rVAac8EeWrpRE16NcMAbJTTMEk6MOcdp52Tit1v7eEDRAcaPiGfKQJZ9RNxLw3_aNij2mYRC6Z1hdyWYypo3at1aautq3Q5TNDwBwmadYxS2vW076QYW9bCMLpZCSepnBllqn2lnyl9L30jum1h_86RrLfgnlDxX2BzhLMOLRflu1shTY3bEQOeBqKdVvA3P94qvhUxC0TIVV1vLGoquaRMKC65UjdvFUhwMQ6dkqS-96luRf2H8Rc7AIui>
> a paid subscriber. *
>
> Support Anti-Monopoly Journalism
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkd2K5CAQhZ8m3m2IP7HtCy8GhnmN4E8lLR210XJnM08_pnsZdkEEPac4H6ecQdhyOfQjVyTnteDxAJ3gs-6ACIW0CmUJXnN2kZxNxGvhqZoVCXVZC0A0YddYGpBHs3twBkNO5wClMxPkpo0SavKUTcyAlHRdrXXe28mIWc3zZF-xpvkAyYGG31COnIDs-ob4qAN_G9hHP9EgVsz7DmWszVY07j66HLt0Pl0JFgb-0TAuEXxoceDvT7qByfOz5lZcd7z_uH99Br8B_tVdTggJu0Fwcb1MSpKgOzWldJrpPElxHdkIl6tblXCSypVRpsZ7_rL5zzYPYoob-4-MFB2Du0Fv8g6mJDi6aTuRnmrvq4fG2FLAY4Fk7A7-VSW-FvLEXzZIUPqi_GJQU8klZUJxyZV6Vde7_iHu8T73qaT_qesbBrimgw>
> ------------------------------
> #PizzaIsNotWorking: Inside the Pharmacist Rebellion at CVS and Walgreens
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkk1vozAQhn9NuBX5AwgcfMi2SUVUklSqmu4JOWZCHMBGtimFX79OsoddyfZo3vmS_IzgDmptJtZr64LbU7qpB6ZgtC04ByYYLJhSVoySZUIJCioWVTiN00Da8mwAOi5b5swAQT-cWim4k1rdCjCOSRRcWFVhIQgl0TnLeJplGcaEn0kSU8IjxJePsXyoJCgBDL7BTFpB0LKLc71d0NWCbPzpuHPW6bYFE9rhZB0XTSh050P97cp55tIq7UZtGqnqJ6msrODJXeCpv3DTcSGtW9CN0w2oBX2BaYsF-Zy-SNvkVz0XV0GKOR_fnrfjie7QXx0V83u8m1fRTo6SHzfIaz-7a0GKjxztXwri83tBC7mX27E65q74WOPi-i69Pnv_rt_6vX1t29_HHeLHbMgVCrdoXJn8m8TrsjDplC-bX23zzA9mta8P1fi5acvX16ieD3YdSEYQwRijGMcoibKQhLDMxDmNRIKTM8EkDRs9n_RPHS8i1NXkvz8KDOukuIBn2gA3CiafVN_Q3aOeXOltNyjpphIUP7VQPaC6x2rcMZc1KDB-ZaqSO4YTmmASpTShafqA6KlHNMqWKE0CP77Svkqxf8D9AXXG1DU>Workers
> and independent business people - even in the professional class - are
> supremely mad at monopolists. But they aren't looking to a political party
> for help.
> Matt Stoller
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxNkMtuhCAUhp9m2I2Rq7hgMZu-hkE8OmQQDBzb2qcvjl00IVwC_zl8n7MIS8qH2VJBck4DHhuYCF8lACJkshfIg58MZ53irCWTERPVUhNfhjkDrNYHg3kHsu1j8M6iT_EMUCqZIE8zdgIch5lKbkUrLFiqJBtH0XHZz85ebe0-eYgODHxCPlIEEswTcSs3_rixjzrKPha07tW4tNbjltPsA9RdJ3vK9H21iPeCKYT6a29YyyilraSyVaJvWANd72YtnKJqZjXQvNLPmL4XeRPturDmf32SzerdE6qDF9gc4aiPlhP1fVtJh7que_R4DBDtGGC6JOCl8q1lWCBCroqnwaKhiivKhOaKa31BV0uCi75rtSK1_ZRqKpoT5I_jF8SAjOc>
> Nov
> 5
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVUk1vozAQ_TXhthE2xsCBQzebqkSFiCptyl6QMZPECbZZME3g19c0XWlXsmbk-Z55jzMDR92Ncat748yiNGMLsYJr34Ax0DlDD10p6tjDAfWw69QxqVHoh47oy0MHIJloYtMN4LRD1QjOjNBqTkDIx8Q5xdQLWOAHVYQQoi6LQnzgBHlhiCPf5xXc27KhFqA4xPAB3agVOE18MqbtF97DAj_aJ5kxvdFNA92yH6reMH5Zci2ti7XCyg9kxVzMqq-xfnTA-DzOwns0-gJW_4Jxgzh-G99xc0nOekrPHKdTcn1eba6Vl7nfdjedcj-bHkgmroLLt1PhvbQVJmIrnoViubDxbfGei-15bfOLW3rOidV9IpuJjwlN1E9UCPeW7l7HbJX0icrsf7ZvmmKfuWwfDYlyl2hVF7_ln9262qmNFMd8TZ50JYu8f6HiddrX6_OT9retn6QLTAcjy14PHQe7yt8jfNsl1GKQ84rz7o6IsYvtyV0f-S4l0RIvIYj4ISScInrACIfLi54qfTv6C-LKI_7vqk4XS8FPYFlwAdYpGG3Qca785bVYl1bLQQkzlqBY1UB9p4G5k-lrivIICjpLsrpkJkbUowiT0KMW_TvslifEI1HghtSx7Wtts1T8D9SfADDlHg>
> [image:
> Comment]
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVUk1vozAQ_TXhFmQbQ8iBQ7ZNKqKSpFLVdE_ImAlxABvZphR-_ZqkK-1KtqV58-l5jzMLldJj0iljvfnJ7dhBImEwDVgL2usN6FyUSUBWUUCQVya0xHEYe8LkFw3QMtEkVvfgdX3RCM6sUHJOwDgk1LsmFAgQDhxiFvMVpigOGYOgIDhaE0Th0Zb1pQDJIYEv0KOS4DXJ1drOLILNguzcaZm1xqqmAe2bvjCW8drnqnWubr5impgwUtlB6VrIaimkESUs7RWW3ZXplnFhrIt0OS1I6yrvrKpBLoJnGPeYk4_xkzR1elNTduMkm9Lh9Wk_FMEB_eAom97Cw7ShBzEIdt4hh30fbhnJ3lN0fM6Ii-94kImj2A_lObXZ-xZntzfh8MnZd3yu9_q5b36fD4id130qkb9Hw0anXyTc5pmOx3RV_2rqJ3bSm2N1KoePXZO_vNBqOpntgkS9bXOjes3Bjf53FT94C6Xo2_lLMzGeSAgiGGMU4hBFdO0TH1Zrfokpj3B0IZjEfq2mQn1X4YKitiL_7dbTSSv4FZwWamBawuiCqrny3esYz-dt9lLYMQfJigbKhxjsQ1L3KfIKJGgntTJnNsFREGFC4yAK4vhBvlMLDeh6heLIc-1L5bJk8g_hfwCyz-j2>
> [image:
> Share]
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkttuozAQhp8m3BXZ5hDngotsm1REJUmlquleIccMxAFsZJtSePo1SSt1JdvSfJ6D5tfPmYVK6THplLHe_OR27CCRMJgGrAXt9QZ0LookIMs4IMgrkrDANKKeMHmpAVommsTqHryuPzeCMyuUnAswjkjoXZKSUFqWJY8QJ3FJ8XJFw5DGtOTLEjhG97GsLwRIDgl8gh6VBK9JLtZ2ZhGsF2TrTsusNVY1DWjf9GdjGa99rlr31c1XTBMTRio7KF0LWT0IaUQBD_YCD92F6ZZxYewi2Pa2zY3qNYdF8PTTaUHimbdQiL51_LbXN-RKWpB2znZ9wFHG5y1_AatqmGMYd5iT9_GDNHV6VVN25SSb0uHlcTecgz365iibXqP9tA73YhDstEWOfe2vGcneUnR4yojL73iQiYPYDcUptdnbBmfXV-H45OIbn_u9fOyav6c9YqdVn0rk79Cw1ukniTZ5pumYLus_Tf3Ijnp9qI7F8L5t8ufnsJqOZuOJhCCCMUYRjlAcrnziw3LFSxryGMclwYT6tZrO6quKFiFqK_Kf7p5OWsEv4HxSA9MSRpdUzbLdfp0bnHBt20thxxwkOzdQ3I1i73a7SZxXIEE7GxY5swmOgxiTkAZxQOndGM5JYRCulojGnhtfKFclk19m-AcS7fKS>
>
> Welcome to BIG, a newsletter about the politics of monopoly. If you?d like
> to sign up, you can do so here
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkEtuxCAMhk8zLKPwCCELFt30GoiAk0FDIAKn0_T0ZSabVrJsy099v7MIay6n3nNF8nIGzx10gmeNgAiFHBWKCV5zNkrOeuK18FQNioRqlgKw2RA1lgPIfswxOIshp9cCpQMT5K597wbpRuU95fMkWnXxI2XTskg2Ww_XW3v4AMmBhi8oZ05Aor4j7vXGP27ss9lmESvmGKF09ZgrWvfoXN5a6wmxJUCCZj2jlPYDHXoppo51ME5uUcJJKhdGmeoe-WfO3-twE_22sn-XSNFbcHdo5A-wJcHZhtYX4Lvb-EyL25ECngaSnSP4Cx0vAd9imBUSlCasNxY1lVxSJhSXXKkLtWkjuJjGXknS3vvctpL-g_cLfyWK6Q>.
> Or just read on?
>
> Today I?m writing about a worker revolt inside chain pharmacies, and how
> the broader anger from workers all over the country relates to both market
> power and politics.
> BIG Announcements
>
> -
>
> Because of reporting in BIG,
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkM1uhSAQhZ_mstMAIuKCRTd9DYMwKrkIBsa29unLrZs2mZ_FzOTM-axBWFO-9JEKkleZ8DpAR_gsARAhk7NAnrzTHR9kxylxWjimekV8mZYMsBsfNOYTyHHOwVuDPsXXAWM9F2TT0ox2kIJ2w-CsG8aR2kXRhQNVbpYAt6w5nYdoQcMH5CtFIEFviEd5dG8P_l5jN4gFUwiQ23LOBY19tjbtdXTU3MBkH9fGeNdYkxFCY1PO54GlmU8fHPGaU84Yoz3rqRRjy1sYxvqMsJLJhTOu2mf6ntPX2j8E3Vf-T4dkvXu7QeXyrFoRrrq0vuz_Tqv7qfb9jB6vCaKZA7gbDN54f1FNK0TIFbubDGomO8m4UJ3slLpBVHKiE-NAlSRV3qV6FfUf8z_mPZW4>
> the legislation working its way through Congress on expanding Medicare was
> changed. Under previous rules, Medicare could only buy from the hearing aid
> cartel, but now it is allowed to pay for
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkN2OhCAMhZ9muDT8ixdc7M2-hkGoDhkFA3Vn3adfHBMCbdpyej7vEJZcTrvniuS6Rjx3sAnedQVEKOSoUMYYrOC9FpySYGVgRhkS6zgXgM3F1WI5gOzHtEbvMOZ0DTCmuCRPqykMzEwCZkadCEprCdASbeSsezHdsu4IEZIHCz9QzpyArPaJuNeH-Hrw73bwHa-FOp-3loXgTkgtqOjwqC1gUmkqNVdGSmHk0POBRMspZ4xRxRTVcuh4B_3gZyO9ZnrmjJvulf-m_Luoh6Tbwrt6TO1L_7p0SLFb9E9oKF7gSoKzNS2X40-1GR7bux0p4jlCctMK4WaBN9EPnXGBBKWRDqNDy7TQjEsjtDDm9t5gSdEWpkaTJh9ym0p2c4gV87pC-Qd47Iys>
> over the counter hearing aids. That?s a good thing. The legislation doesn?t
> address the vertical integration of the hearing aid cartel, though I?m
> optimistic in the long term we?ll get there.
> -
>
> Farhad Manjoo in the New York Times featured
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwtkM1uhSAQhZ_msquRHxEXLLrpaxiEQclVMDDWa5--2NtkcobMzMkJnzUIc8qX3lNBcsuI1w46wllWQIRMjgJ5DE5z1kvOWuK0cFR1ioQy-gywmbBqzAeQ_ZjWYA2GFG8DpR0TZNGD7y31vBt4J7hnjvqBcWU7Ogjvpla9Y83hAkQLGr4hXykCWfWCuJcH_3ywr1rneTbxwrBBaWza6oS1jNZGb2lFlbSHWNPryxsLU0rPD3jtkLE0C24rCfq2UNp2tGulGBrWQD9Yr4SVVHpGmWqe6WdKr7l7iHabWVOOqaCxzzuSZL0Fu0Al8wSTI1z1aL4B_G3r_8fatyMGvEaIZlrBvdHgG_AfrHGGCLmCd6NBTSWXlAnFJVf_KCo7wcXQt0qSGu9SdUW9GcSCaV0h_wKgOZLv>
> my arguments on how to fix Facebook. I discussed why breaking apart
> Facebook would actually create a safer and better social networking
> ecosystem.
>
> And now?
>
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVUkuOpDAMPU2xA5EvYZFFa6S5BnISh0IFCZ2E7qZPP6FYjRTZjn_P8rOFgnNMp95jLs0lpnLuqAN-5xVLwdQcGdO0OM3oIBntG6e5I0qoZsmTT4gbLKsu6cBmP8y6WChLDFcBIYLy5qmVY9wbIgAF8wiGOQJmGBE4pePAyQ0Lh1swWNT4hemMAZtVP0vZ84N9POjf-qwLXT5MLmBfnY1bdS0bzFi1x2Kfl65tSnzQP5-3wT7mGF39-3XaU5wT5rx8YfXngrjXihuCigtEXDBVmMO-sMZTi70wxireGgDWcjZgOwqiWnCGUYPDMCreZdbBBr8xwHe-56o97l28zfeQ-W0S4dxI5dBK72nLwcoWhl62DrwcwYPxPZvk2P_IkXd7mJtF054SQnpBRC_52NEOh9F6xa0k0lNCVfeKvyb-zOLB-22m_62oSXpb7BMrlS-EFPCsSfPF2Dtah5yq3o6wlHPCAGZFd3NZ7ot4szvNGDDVS3ETFE0kk4RyxSRT6uauks0ZH4deyabCu1irgt6glFziumL6B8PLyhE>
> Pharmacist and #PIzzaIsNotWorking organizer Bled Marchall Tanoe
> Will the Great Resignation Turn Into the Great Rebellion?
>
> Writing about monopoly is largely about pointing out problems, but
> increasingly it?s also about showing a society waking from its slumber, and
> beginning to fight back. This particular story has to do with a rebellion
> inside some of the biggest health care providers in America - the firms
> that control the pharmacists who dispense our medicine.
>
> These days, chain pharmacies in America are massive, with CVS alone
> touching a third of Americans not just through its massive retail footprint
> but through its various subsidiaries in other parts of health care. While
> big business might seem as American as apple pie, in fact the size of these
> firms is a new phenomenon. From the late 19th century to the 1970s,
> pharmacies were small-scale, often single proprietor shops or small chains.
> Pharmacists always played a dual role, operating as small businesses
> dealing with medical firms, hospitals, and powerful distributors, but also
> as health care providers for local communities, often the sole such
> provider in rural areas.
>
> But roughly forty years ago, after we de facto legalized monopoly power by
> relaxing antitrust law, bigger chains emerged, using mergers and aggressive
> pricing tactics. In February of last year, just before the pandemic hit in
> force, I wrote about
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkEtuhDAQRE8z3oH8xyy8yCbXQMY0YA3YyG5mQk4fT2aTSP1ZVLdK9bxDWFK-7JEKktcY8DrARniWDRAhk7NAHsJkBe-04JRMVk7MKENCGeYMsLuwWcwnkOMct-AdhhRfD4wpLslqOy3Z6AQdFTeKazn1fcfmXs2dolR6_rZ15xQgerDwgHylCGSzK-JRbuLjxj9r7Q6xYNo2yG05x4LO31uf9iodtdf0bPyjNCN4t0PjmhXchmvjXYYGr-wikmA55YwxqpiiWvYtb6Hr_Wyk10zPnHHT3tP3mL4WdZN0X_g_J5LtHvwKlcwdXI5w1aPlBeBXrfmHuvczBrwGiG7cYHqjwTfgX1jDAhFyBT8NDi3TQjMujdDCmDeKyk4K2XfUaFLtp1S_ov0T_wdIzZTW>
> the most important of these chains, CVS, and how it gained power over what
> had been a decentralized industry. Here?s a partial list of acquisitions.
>
> -
>
> 1977, CVS buys 36-store-chain Mack Drug
> -
>
> 1990, CVS buys 490-store-chain People Drug Stores in the mid-Atlantic
> -
>
> 1997, CVS buys 2600-store-chain Revco D.S. across the midwest for $3.7
> billion
> -
>
> 1998, CVS buys 200-store-chain in Michigan for $1.5 billion
> -
>
> 1999, CVS buys online drug store Soma.com
> -
>
> 2002, CVS buys assets from bankrupt discount drug store chain Phar-Mor
> -
>
> 2004, CVS buys 1260-store-chain Eckerd stores, plus Eckerd Health
> Services and $1 billion mail order pharmacy benefits management business,
> plus three distribution centers from J.C. Penney
> -
>
> 2006, CVS buys 700-stand-alone Sav-On and Osco drugstores from
> Albertson?s
> -
>
> 2007, CVS buys Caremark RX pharmacy benefits manager for $26.5 billion
> -
>
> 2008, CVS buys 521-store-chain Long Drug Stores for $2.9 billion,
> including Rx America, a PBM with more than 8 million members
> -
>
> 2015, CVS buys Target corporation?s pharmacy business
> -
>
> 2018, CVS buys Aetna health insurance for $69 billion
>
> Today, CVS spans not just pharmacies but health insurance, and pharmacy
> benefit management (PBM), which is a middleman that sits between
> pharmacies, doctors, and health insurance companies, taking a slice of
> every prescription pill and treatment sold. The market power of big
> pharmacy chains had a number of consequences, from lower pay for
> workers to higher
> prices
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkMtuxCAMRb9m2E3EK4RZsOimvxER8CRoeETgtE2_vkwjWbYl27q-x1mEtdTT7KUheacZzx1Mhu8WAREqORrUOXgj-KQEp8Qb6ZkeNQltflaAZEM0WA8g-7HE4CyGkt8HjI1cks0Ao1JooI_p4bx2k2dcg9TjxJ33IOGStYcPkB0Y-IJ6lgwkmg1xbzfxceOfPUJsdSh17W2FkENe7yHf983WZN15T8H7CAlyn5NgOOWMMTqykSr5GPgAXf6ppVNMPXl_YXiV36X8rONN0rTyoR1LQ-tegyuJVJOC26AjeIGtGc6-tL6d_k-70bnXdOSA5wzZLhH8xQAvkv9U5hUy1E7YzxYNU0IxLrVQQuvLc4ckhXxMVCvS5X3pV9kki9iwxAj1D4yIjRE>
> and worse service
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxFkUtuxCAQRE8z7Gzx82_BIptcw8LQttFgsKAdxzl9mJmMIqFGqKu6Sw-jEZaYLrXHjORRRrx2UAHO7AEREjkypNFZJXjXCk6JVdKyvumJy-OcADbtvMJ0ANmPyTuj0cXwMDDWcElWNXWcUxi4mMHOQnSSNh2dByv1RCemh9dafVgHwYCCL0hXDEC8WhH3fBMfN_5ZznmetYkhHxukBHtMmOuYltLZV502bRzk8nhLcpXReV_tCWZIlQsWdiglYPWvr97q6m9ilUr-sBTzGs8yjTjFKWeM0YY1tJVDzWvoBjP30rSsnTnjfX2PP1P8XpqbpNvC63xMGbW5l7QbSWpzZoUC8w46BbiKaHkwe3YLsrHc2xEcXiMEPXmwL5r4-pMn33GBACUZ2FGjYq1oGZe9aEXfv-gV3FLIoaN9S8p6G4srqE0jZozeQ_oFi-uqiQ>
> to a slower roll-out
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkMtuwyAQRb8m7GLxMiYLFt30NywMYxsFgwXjpO7XlzSbVprHYh5X9ziLsORymj1XJK8y4rmDSfCsERChkKNCGYM3gg9KcEq8kZ7pXpNQx7kAbDZEg-UAsh9TDM5iyOl1wFjPJVkNDNTNqrfUDXym1Cst-aRnMTFh5TzBW9YePkByYOAB5cwJSDQr4l4v4uPCP1tsFrFijhFKV4-ponX3zuWtjfaWa35et5zynmOAeq0xP8FfcYXrwzoX2sNgOOWMMdqznip563gHw83NWjrF1MwZ1909f0_5a-kvkm4L_6dDitmCW6FxuYMtCc62tLzs_06b-7H17UgBzxGSnSL4Nxh84_1FNS6QoDTsfrRomBKKcamFElq_QTRyUsjbQLUiTd7ndpXMH_M_IZCV6w>
> of the vaccines. There are still upwards of 20,000 independent pharmacies
> in America, but every year it gets harder to stay in business.
>
> What this means is that many pharmacists are now employees of big chains.
> And yet working as a pharmacist for a giant chain has also become
> increasingly difficult. Work loads have doubled
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkMturDAMhp9mskS5ExZZtIuzO1LfAIVgmGggQYkppU_fMEiRLduxf_vzDmFO-bRbKkgu0-O5gY1wlAUQIZO9QO7DaAVvteCUjFaOzChDQumnDLC6sFjMO5BtH5bgHYYUrwbGFJfkaQGk4lMrmOaMt6MGpwcALjrFDRWivWXdPgaIHix8Qz5TBLLYJ-JWHuLjwf_VdxxHMzkPQ0qvxqe1poYM7rVvX5__S42uOZdnlErRmZYKqQSlggTLKWeMUcUU1bJreANt5ycjvWZ6qmuZ5pV-h_Qzq4ek68ybsg8FnX8LkWzX4J9QgbzA5Qhn_TRfd7-r9ey--nWPAc8eohsWGG8ieHN9M-pniJAr77F3aJkWmnFphBbG3AQqMilk11KjSZUfU-2KdnWIBdOyQP4DeBmOcg>
> over the last ten years, pay is down, and student debt loads are up (to
> nearly
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxNUk2vnDAM_DVwW0RCCHDIYbXtO79D7ygfho0WEpSYx6O_vgG2aiXkGQd7bGWiJcLowy4WHzE_Qo_7AsLBFidAhJCvEUJvjahowyta5kYwQ9q6zW3shwAwSzsJDCvky6omqyVa744GQmrK8qdolTSKDER2ajCKk7YbWAN1xRWjXV0O11i5GgtOg4AvCLt3kE_iibjErLpn9CN927YVDoLZ5JRWK7Sf06EMaPUEiU1eupgw4mrA4e1vLpOeHOG2PGWYpbYRb_-X3AwozGh1jGl-pojwjVn149czida0fLef_J_Emb5lTn5IneSSS8TGE47ASNMd-KgJO_FS1toHY914Zugz-hiDNGuy5GqNa_iCHcyZqP0qe691vz8-i9wKWlJCSFmTuuSsK2gBTaeHlmlO-EAJbYuX_63891hnrJxHWsRVRZT6ddxfHsRs9RPSdb5ABgd7KhoPQ8-_yc8-4bw6i3sPTqoJzGU1Xg_mNL8fIdmStja9REF4xQllbcWrtr2sTW-BVaxrypbnabzxqcuJWSJG9MnL8AewrtPG>
> $200,000 for a recent graduate), even as the profits of Walgreens, CVS, and
> Walmart skyrocket. And that was before Covid, which put extra strain on
> pharmacists and technicians.
>
> The worker stories coming out of the chain pharmacy world are awful. No
> bathroom breaks. No time for meals. Unforgiving corporate metrics like
> demerits for taking too long to answer the phone or fill prescriptions,
> requirements to ask a certain number of people per week to get a flu shot,
> and always a relentless push
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkEuOhCAQhk_TLA0vERcsZjPrvoFBKJW0goFyepzTD7YJKagXf9XnLMKc8mn2VJBcZsBzBxPhXVZAhEyOAnkI3gjeKcEp8UZ6pltNQhmmDLDZsBrMB5D9GNfgLIYUrwbGWi7JYlgHinsr2kkwRX1HpfLMSTH13TRJrW5Ze_gA0YGBH8hnikBWsyDu5SG-Hvy7HnyHa6DGpa16z8XmzbrzmbyzBWukoMWj1AeTreBS9lJIKZTSfd-SYDjljDHaspYq2Te8ga53k5ZOMTVxxnXzSn9j-p3bh6TbzJtyjPVL97oESTZbcAtUJi-wOcJZi-Zr9U-2bj7UeztiwHOAaMcV_A0Fb7QfTMMMEXJF7geLhimhGJdaKKH1DaFSq0P3Ha1UqrxPtSuazSIWTOsK-R-Zs4_b>
> for more items to do than time to do them. And these sweatshop conditions
> for medical professionals don?t just mean an unpleasant day for a
> pharmacist or technician, it means more mistakes, and accidental deaths.
>
> In fact, before the pandemic, the third leading cause
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkUmupDAMhk9T2YEyAWGRxdu8a6CQGIgqQykxXU2fvkOVFHlQbP32Z2sQ9lwu_coVyW0WvF6gE7xrAEQo5KxQFu-04NMoOCVOS8fUoIivy1YAovFBYzmBvM41eGvQ53Q3MDZwSQ5tlXFyojAxrmYhDZfOiW2e5CbAWia_suZ0HpIFDX-gXDkBCfpAfNWH-Hnw3_be73dv02p7m2NLOWWqOcrv-DYRXFMPHZSSS-3w8MV1AYzzae-saXt0eescGDw6nzoTobT6_sAYiNeccsYYHdhARzn3vIdptpuSdmTjxtvo_TP_W_PffXhIGnfe13OtaOzzHocUHb09oCF7gikJrla032Q-vw3M0nw8k8drgWTWAO7LDL_kPxSXHRKUdhG3GNRsFCPjUolRKPVl1KBKIeeJqpE0eZdbV9LRIFbMIUD5DyNXnCM>
> of death in America was medical errors, at between 250,000 and 440,000
> people a year, roughly the the size of Reno, Nevada dying annually. And of
> course, when there are safety issues caused by understaffing, the chains
> don?t stand by their pharmacists in front of state boards of pharmacy. If a
> pharmacist loses his or her license, they can?t practice.
>
> All of this has caused deep concern within the profession. ?I am a danger
> to the public working for CVS,? one pharmacist wrote in an anonymous letter
> to the Texas State Board of Pharmacy in April. Public officials and
> corporate executives have been hearing the complaints
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwtkUuO5CAQRE9T7NriZwovWPRmrmFhSNuo-FiQnhrP6Qd3jYQiU2SGAj2cRdhKvcxRGpJbZrwOMBneLQIiVHI2qHPwRvCnEpwSb6RnetQktHmtAMmGaLCeQI5zicFZDCXfBsZGLslu9LSyafSCSw9UsNVq6a1iQk-Oi3FZPrH29AGyAwO_oV4lA4lmRzzaQ3w_-K9-3u_3kC8MCdrgSuo3nHLaC2VdxC072Ih7b47d1mRdaNi-Evj_r_qCWkttw44pkmC6nTFGRzZSJaeBD_Cc3KqlU0ytnHE9vMrfpfzZxoekaeNDO5eG1r3ueFJNCm6HTukFtma4-tJ2w_iZdhZzr-nMAa8Zsl0i-A8m_MD-ATdvkKH2T_CzRcOUUIxLLZTQ-oOlc5RCTk-qFenxvnRXNskiNiwxQv0HVdWXyQ>
> for years. But when things get really bad, the typical response from
> higher-ups for flagging morale is to? buy their pharmacists pizza. And that
> condescension from corporate executives and human resources officials is
> what finally lit the spark.
>
> The key organizer of this rebellion is an Ivory Coast immigrant who lives
> in Oklahoma City named Bled Marchall Tanoe. Three months ago, this cheerful
> and optimistic pharmacist wrote a viral post on Facebook asking customers
> to be nicer, describing the stress her colleagues are under every day from
> corporate rules and regulations. At the beginning of the pandemic,? she
> wrote, there was a team spirit, they were called heroes and fed ?pizza and
> coke.? But low pay and poor conditions soon took their toll. Technicians,
> the equivalent of nurses, received just $10/hour, and there was chronic
> understaffing. These staff shortages ultimately led to ?emotional
> breakdown, heart attack, migraines, kidney infections and everything that
> stem from stress,? as well as suicides. In describing what was going on,
> Tanoe used the odd but fitting hashtag #PizzaIsNotEnough, which has since
> gone viral.
> [image: Twitter avatar for @PharmacyPodcast]Pharmacy Podcast Network
> @PharmacyPodcast
> #PizzaIsNotWorking is a movement to change the status-quo working
> environments of #Pharmacists & Techs to ensure the safety of our HCPs & the
> Patients they?re committed to. Interview w/ @BledTanoe PharmD about the
> mission to transform Retail #Pharmacy
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkEuOwyAMhk9TllF4kwWL2cy6N4gIuClqAhE408mcfkgjWTYG7N_-vEOYcznsliuS0414bGATvOsCiFDIXqGMMVjOtOKsJ8GKQI00JNbxUQBWFxeLZQey7dMSvcOY01lAqWSCPK0wjOpJTtzLYXLSAVOBGTYAB2WE9pes20OE5MHCD5QjJyCLfSJu9ca_buy7Gb7jOVDn89qy-9OV1fnjnoN3FdtNRYd7bQcqpNS90oZpLpXRylASLesZpbSXVPZKDB3rQA_-YYRXVD0YZaZ75b8p_87yJvp1Zl3dp9bSv05BUuwa_RMakxe4kuBon-Zz9c9r23xscd1TxGOE5KYFwgUFL7QfTOMMCUpDHkaHliquKBOGK27MBaFRE1wMujeKNPmQW1Wyq0OsmJcFyj_YKZAP>
> podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pha?
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxFkUtqxDAMhk8T7xr8jrPwolB6jeDYmoyZxA620jY9fZ1OoSAkoV9C4pN3CEsup91zRXK5Cc8dbILPugIiFHJUKFMMVvBBC05JsDIwowyJdboVgM3F1WI5gOzHvEbvMOZ0DTCmuCR3qzgDdZuN1tSEIBTAOCozSAbgZq3Fc607QoTkwcIHlDMnIKu9I-61E68df2-25-Bdxdq7fV-h93lrxaP-K1d2d2Vz_nz5K70kwM9cHk2KQdBRUDEw3on32Ik3RilVklIzaiFItJxyxhhVTFEtx573MIz-ZqTXTN8446Z_5O85fy2qk3RbeF-PuaLzj-sWUuwW_R0atQe4kuBsTcsF51dtbKYWtyNFPCdIbl4hPLHhE_4vyGmBBKU9JUwOLdNCMy6N0MKYJ6bGVQo5DtRo0taH3KaS3RxixbyuUH4Au5Ka_w>
> [image: Image]
>
> November 3rd 2021
> 6 Retweets6 Likes
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkEuOwyAMhk9TllF4kwWL2cy6N4gIuClqAhE408mcfkgjWTYG7N_-vEOYcznsliuS0414bGATvOsCiFDIXqGMMVjOtOKsJ8GKQI00JNbxUQBWFxeLZQey7dMSvcOY01lAqWSCPK0wjOpJTtzLYXLSAVOBGTYAB2WE9pes20OE5MHCD5QjJyCLfSJu9ca_buy7Gb7jOVDn89qy-9OV1fnjnoN3FdtNRYd7bQcqpNS90oZpLpXRylASLesZpbSXVPZKDB3rQA_-YYRXVD0YZaZ75b8p_87yJvp1Zl3dp9bSv05BUuwa_RMakxe4kuBon-Zz9c9r23xscd1TxGOE5KYFwgUFL7QfTOMMCUpDHkaHliquKBOGK27MBaFRE1wMujeKNPmQW1Wyq0OsmJcFyj_YKZAP>
>
> In doing so, she gave voice to anger and frustration among pharmacists and
> technicians working at giant chain pharmacies, predominantly CVS,
> Walgreens, Walmart, and Kroger, with pharmacists singling out CVS for
> special scorn. The Facebook group she helps run
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkMturDAMhp9mskS5ExZZtIuzO1LfAIVgmGggQYkppU_fMEiRLduxf_vzDmFO-bRbKkgu0-O5gY1wlAUQIZO9QO7DaAVvteCUjFaOzChDQumnDLC6sFjMO5BtH5bgHYYUrwbGFJfkaQGk4lMrmOaMt6MGpwcALjrFDRWivWXdPgaIHix8Qz5TBLLYJ-JWHuLjwf_VdxxHMzkPQ0qvxqe1poYM7rVvX5__S42uOZdnlErRmZYKqQSlggTLKWeMUcUU1bJreANt5ycjvWZ6qmuZ5pV-h_Qzq4ek68ybsg8FnX8LkWzX4J9QgbzA5Qhn_TRfd7-r9ey--nWPAc8eohsWGG8ieHN9M-pniJAr77F3aJkWmnFphBbG3AQqMilk11KjSZUfU-2KdnWIBdOyQP4DeBmOcg>
> to support pharmacists during Covid now has 45.5k members. (For a frame of
> reference, there are roughly 700k pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in
> America, so this movement is hitting a meaningful swath of the workforce.)
>
> The comments make it clear she?s hit a nerve.
>
> *?Working for CVS for 1 month will take 1 year off your life. I only lasted
> for ~8 months at that crap hole of a corporation.?*
>
> *?I was at a Walgreens on Friday and a pharmacist started crying cause she
> was so stressed. There were a lot of people waiting and this old lady came
> and the pharmacist told her to come back on Monday and then started crying
> a few sec later. And the old lady was saying how she can not come back, she
> got a car service to come here and can not come back. I felt so bad for the
> lady and the pharmacist. Seriously there are so many better options then
> retail. Get out. So glad I did.?*
>
> *?Maybe a group of pharmacists should sit down with a legislator to discuss
> a bill to regulate the amount of work allowed . The chains were able to
> keep adding work for many years before this breaking point.*
>
> Pharmacists have also taken to Twitter to publicly criticize the CEO of CVS
> Health when she bragg
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkEtuxCAMhk8zLCPeIQsW3XTT7nqAiICTQZNABE6n6elLOpKF8Ysff94hLLmcds8VyXWMeO5gEzzrCohQyFGhjDFYwXstOCXBysCMMiTWcS4Am4urxXIA2Y9pjd5hzOkaYExxSe6WwUSdpmGe9KwENb6XXNE5DEOvhzCJl6w7QoTkwcI3lDMnIKu9I-71Jt5u_L0ZPuP1oc7nrUUfrkD6-jyTv7eoosOjtguTShmjec971Ws5SCZJtJxyxhhVTNGW63gH_eBnI71meuaMm-6Rf6f8s6ibpNvCu3pM7Un_uMRIsVv0d2g8HuBKgrM1Ldfa_9W29dj8dqSI5wjJTSuEFxB8Yf1HNC6QoDTcYXRomRaacWmEFsa8ADRiUsihp0aTJh9ym0p2c4gV87pC-QNqJ455>ed
> about corporate earnings to Wall Street. Here?s just one example.
>
> [image: May be a Twitter screenshot of 1 person and text that says 'Karen
> Lynch @KarenSLynch Earlier today @CVSHealth posted third quarter 2021
> earnings results, and I'm incredibly proud of what we had to share. As
> always, I'm thankful for #TeamCVS and inspired by the dedication and heart
> they bring to the communities we serve. Shane Jerominski @AccPharmacist
> Replying to @KarenSLynch and @CVSHealth I'm more impressed by the
> independent pharmacies across this country that are still managing to keep
> their doors open. If it were up to CVS no alternatives to filling in your
> understaffed, unsafe stores would exist. Substandard care yields massive
> profits, no surprise there.']
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVUslu5CAQ_Zr2zRa74cAhijS_YbGU3Uzb4AGcpPP1we1cRkK1QdUr6pUzFZaUn3pPpXanmOpzBx3hs6xQK-TuKJCn4DUlo6AEdV4zjyWXXSjTnAE2E1Zd8wHdftg1OFNDimcCxpyw7q757A2zyhgPDAhVdp7BUToqhoRBTl6w5vABogMNH5CfKUK36nute7nRtxv5047zcSiHLdW4x-DS1kJhMws0PUN191O3MjXdyPu_y6BvS0q--fM67TktGUoJH9DipQLsLeOCIPwE4SdME_ZwD2j3uQfErXWS9dYY2jM6Qq84lr3xlhIL46gkGwodzGa-UzSf5eqr1bhm8TJfTZarMsNcEUV7RQ1q9ZjspWouEXIktklq_cQV_1ICDX93WLqgCSIYY8QxR4KpgQwwKjdL5gQWM8FEDo_0bdPXwm8MbQv5b0Zd1ltwd2hcPsDkCM_2aDkpe922LqemtyOG-pwgGruCv8is10q86J0WiJDbqvjJVI0FFZgwSQWVv-Q1tttn1Iik6Bq8Ty0r6s3UWmpaV8g_xM_JCw>
>
> I spent some time speaking with Tanoe, who is an unlikely rebel against
> corporate power. ?I have never thought of being anything else but a retail
> pharmacist,? she told me. ?That?s all I wanted to do, because I want to be
> right there with my patients, to know them, to be present for them.?
>
> And yet, in August, Tanoe had had enough. She quit her job, because like a
> lot of pharmacists, she felt she was becoming a danger to the very patients
> she sought to protect ?I was too tired,? said explained. Then, after
> quitting, she used her voice to effect change. The goal was to bring the
> problems to the attention of the firm leaders themselves, in hopes they
> would change the situation.
>
> Tanoe has become something of a reporter, explaining publicly what is going
> on at these stores. A few weeks ago, Tanoe wrote about an unnamed
> pharmacist at an Indiana CVS who began having chest pains during her shift
> treating patients. Neither the family nor CVS will release her name, and
> fellow employees are afraid of retaliation for speaking out. But according
> to Tanoe, this woman was told to stay in the store until a replacement
> could arrive, roughly two hours later. She died of a heart attack, her head
> held by a technician, after a patient tried
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwl0EuOhCAQBuDTNEvDG1ywmGTS1zAIpU1awQCO45x-sE0IRYDiJ5-zFeaUT7OlUtE1DfXcwEQ4ygK1QkZ7gTwEbxhVklGMvOGeaKFRKMOUAVYbFlPzDmjbxyU4W0OKVwMhgnL0MlzDiGmvlCCeaaImOklCNWVCEY_B37F29wGiAwM_kM8UAS3mVetWHuzrQZ9tHMfRTdbBmNK7c2ltW0LQXmjFRFtfr5RWCSZC95gTzHHPFJNXN3v6B_uOKBiKKSEECyKw5H1HO1C9mzR3ksiJtn917_Q3pt9ZPDheZ9qVfSzVuk8kymYN7gWN5g02RzjbpfkS-Jw2gKHVdY-hngNEOy7gb5t6C3-0hhki5CbvB1sNkaxxcM0k0_q2aHic8V5hLVGL96l1RbPaWktNywL5H09ljs4>
> CPR on her. It?s a grim story, but not one that surprises many pharmacists
> working for the chains.
> People Who Work vs People Who Monopolize
>
> I found a number of things fascinating about this campaign. First, it?s
> intertwined with anger at monopoly power, and in a fundamental way. Tanoe
> was very clear that this is not a simple fight between employees and
> employers; the problem is with large chain pharmacies, not independent
> pharmacies who run their own stores, who she sees as being ?very patient
> driven.? Most people in the industry have a sophisticated understanding of
> the market power at work and can distinguish between the big players and
> the small ones.
>
> Tanoe expressed sympathy for the independents, because in her view, they
> have a boss as well, the small group of middlemen known as pharmacy benefit
> managers (PBM), that set the terms and pricing for reimbursement rates that
> independent pharmacists receive for prescribing medicine. Since CVS owns
> Caremark, one of the largest PBMs, CVS sets the prices its competitors are
> paid, making this dominant firm the boss not only of its own pharmacists it
> employs, but of the independent pharmacists who must contract with its PBM
> subsidiary. CVS also owns the insurance giant Aetna, which means it has the
> ability to drive more business away from independents to its own
> pharmacies, while not staffing up those pharmacies adequately. So this
> labor action is indistinguishable from the anti-monopoly calls from
> independents to break up PBMs; both are targeting CVS, and for the same
> reason.
>
> As one might expect, #PizzaIsNotWorking has generated brutal backlash from
> the chains. Tanoe shared a text with me about an all company meeting,
> likely CVS (though she wouldn?t tell me which firm), where the
> #PizzaIsNotWorking movement came up, and the executives said they would be
> posting a ?contingency? for how to handle those who spread ?dissent and
> misinformation.? Another employee mentioned the phrase ?Pizza Is Not
> Working? to her boss, and was fired for ?conspiring against the company
> from within.? She was then told that ?maybe learning to keep your head down
> and mouth shut will help you succeed in whatever you fail in next.?
> Interestingly, several pharmacy technicians were also fired, but the
> pharmacist, who also supported the campaign was merely suspended.
>
> And the reason for suspending the pharmacist, instead of firing him/her, is
> also interesting. Chains simply can?t keep enough people on staff to keep
> their stores open. And that means that workers finally have leverage.
> ?Everything ok down there Arkansas??
>
> The lack of adequate staffing in pharmacies has at this point become
> something of a joke in the industry. For instance, here?s a list of of
> pharmacy job openings and signing bonuses in Arkansas, posted
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJx1U02PnDAM_TXDrYh8kGEOHEa7WvXWSw-9RSFxIJ1AUBKW0l9fA1tV1e5KiCT2c_z8YmuVoQ9xa-eQcrH_ZN5maCdYk4ecIRZLgiidaRm9CkarwrTckKZuCpekjQCjcr7NcYFiXjrvtMouTHsAITXlxdBqQ7jghlor2K0TDbDOsqtiurOm4UycadViHEwaWniFuIUJCt8OOc_pwu4X-oLfuq6lVRq6EB6lDiOaUkbu5TzMF3bupe2cubBnTm5NwwS_1VUtruRCxWEmVVVxXlNCrqKiu3mUMOWUI6hRprBEDQizAEaOoXMedohBDs8XWmO-QUWIX4xTPvRHXlqzF5v25bnZIcLG47Dv65Ogg_R2OgAJmeyIdxTRJ22Wh3O08qznAVv5AbJm9xxm6VEsLw_9nPkM52Xofn7q1mHKKIEM63S8s8SnL9_pdN40xLB2Sj_kP60_uXVWPeyUPr7oDPfh7JXy9p9Z5az0MO6cUt48oMwhhzdIyLm8_5Cz_-roZsTT929Pf6OzwX70fSrZIaXDsuKkUJ0Irw5W6caT0_Gidm-GwrUUSRFS1aSusISSlnC9adtwLYiwlNCmfITfXfjV1xdejT0t09Il5Hc0YBHb0ekBcFAeoOIEG4L6fR4OL46DxHVcJpc3bDPVeTDnpORz3o7ZkT2g8jiHBktviWCCUI6KsqYp3l625YzfrlUjCkxvAkZN7Yg6oWDeQ_wDbIYv4Q>
> by a pharmacist who asked ?everything ok down there Arkansas??
>
> [image: No photo description available.]
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVUsmOpDAM_ZriBsqecMihNdL8BspiqExBwiShu-mvn1CcRopsx9uz_OxMhSXlU--p1O4SUz130BG-ygq1Qu6OAnkKXlMiBSWo85p5rLjqQpnmDLCZsOqaD-j2w67BmRpSvAow5oR1T42YcNiB9zCjmQATXGLCuHTSz2Qc5Q1rDh8gOtDwCflMEbpVP2vdy4N-PMjv9pyPQzlsqca9Bpe25gqbWaDpGap7Xrq1qelBfv29DfqxpOTbf16nPaclQynhE5q_VIC9VdwQhF8g_IJpwh7uBS2ee0DcWqdYb42hPaMS-pFj1RtvKbEg5ajYUOhgNvOTovkq91ytx72Lt_kesrxNapTHlLdWXpKecS96O6K5FxaPoyXcCiYnNcpvTAga_uywdEETRDDGiGOOBBsHMoAc3ayYE1jMBBM1vNKPTd8LfzC0LeS_JXVZb8E9oZH5ApMjnC1puTh7R9uYU9PbEUM9J4jGruBvNut9E29-pwUi5HYrfjJVY0FFY1BRQZW62Wt0M8pGiZToGrxPrSrqzdRaalpXyP8ArZjJNQ>
>
> In the comments, pharmacists from New Mexico, Massachusetts, Oklahoma,
> Indiana, Tennessee, and Florida weighed in with their own stories of
> understaffing, talking about walk outs, bad working conditions, shuttered
> stores, and the resulting stress on remaining employees. The understaffing
> both gives employees leverage, and compounds the stress.
>
> It?s not just pharmacies. This staffing shortage is happening across the
> economy in many different sectors. And while high labor demand gives
> employees leverage, it also puts added pressure on them. According to the
> Society of Human Resource professionals
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJytU01z2yAQ_TXWTRoJffqgg2M7cdxUqZ3ETU4aJNaISIAGUGL51xfZ6Uxz7wwD7GOXtyxva2yASjXmvdTGmabSjD3kAj51B8aAcgYNqmQkD1GahMh3SB6RIIszh-nyqAA4Zl1u1ABOP1Qdq7FhUkwBQRCjyGny0I-zuMbYn8eEVEEYg18RPyMQz3GS4eOVFg-Egaghhw9QoxTgdHljTK9n4WKGbu34_Pz0dKO4JxW15h60HFQNeiHIs5SdtlijXCN7Vk_7WvIehL6kY81fmMIEA-87OYLSrgLdS0FsxLRlVFxcXaMHgTlzq9FVmGkmqNvj0WW8V_JjsioQcGRGe1j3p1l42zHRGjiZWbj6f5fPUMJbIxmxt6ZpEiE_jS02GF5en21xjlULRn7BHAgb-CUJ-yNfYI15jy37BBNmpGK4m6Xr5bfaxMjHglzWm7_06bp4KJGPAjcI3Kj8N8C1zu7NtzxLI1tL8bi6Pz8c9q8vox8_rnaLxeJuwdiPn6WkpCiyYidp0dxuN-Pvp2a3Cm96l4Xb6Lhs3tbF4_L17l2j8rVn93QD8_StoO1JLDfPvD6f5VP8lHW7w0Zk6xe6PIR7-b50e5YiN_y12O5lMRzO71vqsHxKOgj8OIj9JJp7yIN0Xh-zqE6C5IgClHmtPFfyRONZ5HOKPD1U2uC69axiHJVzVjdgtd8CVgJG60Sngl5OrcJLu_JBMDOWIHDVAbmK31xb6FL8ktrqKNtapMQmD5IwCVCUhUmYZVex2-6Iwmie-lniWHoibZTIOTZGG9l1oP4AtBA-4A>,
> more than half of the employees in the economy say they?ve had to take on
> more work because a colleague has quit, and over 40% are now thinking of
> quitting because they saw a colleague quit.
>
> In health care this problem is especially acute. Nurses too have had enough
> of being given too many shifts and not enough resources, and I?m told that
> workers for DaVita dialysis clinics - another dominant firm in its area -
> are quietly walking off the job, because of a similar problem of low pay
> and poor working conditions.
>
> These workers want more money, but the basic problem is that as
> professionals, they do not have enough power to protect their own dignity
> and the health of their patients. They went into their professions to help
> people, and the suits upstairs are causing them to hurt their patients
> instead. In fact, money won?t solve the problem, not unless it?s
> accompanied by changes to stop interfering with patient care and terrifying
> caregivers. As Tanoe put it, ?Why would I work in fear if I can work at
> Chick-filet without stress??
> Patient-Centered Care
>
> So what?s the solution? I put the question to Tanoe multiple times. And she
> was fairly hesitant to give a clean answer, probably because the problem is
> so deep-rooted. CVS, after all, took thirty years to construct. Her goal is
> to have these firms change their corporate policies in favor of
> ?patient-centered care,? but she didn?t quite know how to get the chains to
> do that. For them, she said, ?it?s about the money.?
>
> We talked about a number of possible policy interventions. She mentioned
> having state boards actually enacting the death penalty against chain
> pharmacies who induce unsafe conditions. Since individual pharmacists can
> have their licenses revoked, the thinking goes, why not the big guys? ?If
> you commit Medicaid or Medicare fraud you are banned by the Centers for
> Medicare & Medicaid Services,? she said, and it should be that way for
> chain pharmacies with staffing issues that cause errors.
>
> Tanoe brought up PBMs and independent pharmacies, and we talked about
> different ways to address the market power of dominant firms. Pharmacists
> seem to hate Caremark as much as they hate CVS itself. While antitrust
> economists often still imagine that PBMs and giant health care
> conglomerates are run efficiently instead of as sweatshops, such thinkers
> are rapidly losing influence. Today, Federal enforcers are beginning
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxNUdGupCAM_Zrh0Qgqgw887Mv-BkGoSkbAQL2z3q-_dcxNNiFQ2p70nB5nEZZcTr3niuy6DJ476ATvugEiFHZUKCZ43Ymn7ETLvO49V4NioZq5AEQbNo3lALYf0xacxZDTBeB8ED1bNZ_7sXsKBXL0SirBuYChc-Nz4lyNY3uPtYcPkBxo-IJy5gRs0yviXh_dn4f4S-f9fjczumbJX_SrZ0WIFMxhg0qvz-6IkPCKbyamIsn7zfFhbAehLuhv2uTZuBxjqJU4k8yS14DGrXkv1hRYbPEhLQZX-K-vUmXPhdDJ7Kst0brTTJBgJmy0yS5Qmt3PLGjRklreDnxoZT82ooHn6GbVO8nlLLhQzSt_T_nfMjz6Ni6iqcdE7NyroXGs6BjcCuTDC2xJcFLTcq37UyWNH1JHCngaSHbawN9G4G3nxxqzELNCgr2xqLnsJBe96mSn1L14cqrv-vHZKslovM-ESjpaxIp526D8AMCDv8U>
> to look at doing something meaningful about PBMs, and states are
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxNUsmu3CAQ_Br7ZovN24FDlOUTkqPVhh4PGhscwG-e8_VpZnKIhKoLaKhuCgMZ1xAvfYSU6wJzvg7UHp9pw5wx1mfCODurpRh6KVhttbJ87MbapfkWEXdwm87xxPo4l80ZyC74coDzTqj6rg1Y3lmYYJEjU8Mk6DDjvWUKFDMg37JwWofeoMYPjFfwWG_6nvORKvmlEj9oeHNAG-JaKJUXQ9iJ_oaCgglOgU0EfCB4YsrNh4ur8w6aY9lTcwvbFp7NBs8mxGYLCZsrnMScQZ-wErJIDd8JM37mSn77RZdUohPs57-LKjGk10Jp3BZ94uH2Cib4dO4YK_E1-O36f6s80XsebUkgdtwh7mAcprZ2upTPOet4x3o1taLFYTK3UZme9zfBxdg-wp8lfK5dpdi-ijadS8pgHq0Jex317swdya8HQvR4UdJaNF-75MpMcT-9y9eMHpYN7duw_Lb9ZeG8osdI38HOkDXvZc-FGmUvx_FtEDmqpJoGNvY1yVP34LzeIeeU6WUx_gUNhcHX>
> passing stricter laws regulating their activities.
>
> But antitrust interventions and regulation are not the only solutions; I
> also asked about unionization, a standard model for worker empowerment.
> ?Yes, that is being thrown out to me very, very often,? she told me, but
> with a sense of hesitancy. In many states, she said, it isn?t necessarily
> possible to form a union. The traditional organizing model for pharmacists
> is professional associations, which allows for a combination of chain store
> workers and independent pharmacists, rather than the normal American
> firm-specific industrial unions. Tanoe?s not sure if pharmacists and
> technicians would want a union. ?Can we trust those in charge of the
> union?? she asked. ?Are we will to do the work going forward??
> Fundamentally unionization is about institution-building, and that?s a
> difficult endeavor. Nevertheless, Tanoe is doing a survey of pharmacists to
> find out what they want.
>
> Interestingly, one thing that didn?t come up at all was standard partisan
> politics. Tanoe wasn?t really seeing the answer as public policymakers
> intervening, her instinct is that the people with power to be persuaded are
> the executives at the firms themselves. And now that there?s a worker
> shortage, most people in the industry realize pharmacists and technicians
> have levers such as quitting or speaking out. But there?s nothing in the
> political system that seemed particularly relevant, not even organized
> labor.
>
> And this brings me to the puzzle that anti-monopolists must solve. Two
> nights ago, Democrats got crushed in a series of elections around the
> country. It?s a bizarre situation, because Democrats are traditionally the
> party of labor unions, and Americans have not been as militantly pro-labor
> as they are now since 1965
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkU2O5CAMhU9T7CoKv0UWLHoz14gIOAkqAgicns6cfkiXZGELsN7zZ2cRtlwvU3JDch8zXgVMgr8tAiJUcjaoc_CGs5fibCTeCE-11CS0ea0Ahw3RYD2BlHOJwVkMOd0NlEomyG44VWx1C2fKau31qL2TVK6wSDFN1K8fWXv6AMmBgW-oV05AotkRS3vwrwf70-P2NGw2xrMMLh_9puQYe-JSCCl7YUup-dvGZ7RLrs8zdSftuYdth4bPkkPCJ52UHGwrPyQYNjJK6djdjEpMAxvgNblVC6eoWhllenjnf0v-2eRDjMfGhnYuDa173_qkmiO4HTqmN9ia4OqftpvG72uHMfd8dBN4zZDsEsF_OOGH9i-5eYMEtW_BzxYNVVxRJjRXXOsPlw5ScDG9Rq1Il_e5dyVzWMSGfXyo_wHC-Ji->.
> In these most recent elections, Republicans, some of whom are musing on
> trying to become a party of workers, didn?t really mention worker
> frustration. It just wasn?t a factor in these races. This is especially
> weird because workers these days have *power* due to extremely high demand
> for employment. And yet, there?s simply no institutional connection between
> the mass worker frustration and the political system.
>
> I think the reason is because this new worker unrest doesn?t actually sit
> cleanly in either political party. Most independent pharmacists are in
> rural areas, which skew conservative. And independent pharmacists are
> business owners, who also skew Republican. Chain pharmacists, by contrast,
> would normally be considered workers, and thus, most political figures
> would say ?well how about a union?? and thus see them as Democrats. And yet
> neither a small business association nor a union quite covers their
> concerns; in both cases, their boss interfering with patient care is the
> CEO of CVS, and therefore, Wall Street. And neither the Republicans nor the
> Democrats are fully breaking with the philosophy of Wall Street, which is
> that maximizing shareholder value brings prosperity.
>
> So far, no one in politics has figured out how to be relevant to this broad
> revolt of people who work for a living either as small business people or
> as employees, both of whom are tired of Wall Street driven executives
> exploiting and insulting them. And I don?t have an answer to this political
> puzzle. But I do think that whoever figures it out could govern for a
> generation.
> ------------------------------
>
> *The Mustached Villain Behind the Rapid Covid Testing Shortage
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkE2OhCAQhU_T7NoAItILFrOZaxh-SiWNYLDsGef0g-1mJqEgqVfFy_ucQZhyOfSaNyTnNeCxgk7wtUVAhEL2DcoQvG55L1tOidfCM9UpErZhLACLCVFj2YGsu43BGQw5nQuMdVyQWfeMdyBAsbZ34Gxvxeh7MFTWBrWCXbZm9wGSAw0vKEdOQKKeEdft1n7c-Gc9i0HcMMcIpdl2u6Fxz8blpUprLZzhvuxndwZ_f4UYTUh3C3NI_l5FEjSnnDFGO9ZRKR4Nb6B_uFEJJ5kcOeOqeeYfm7-n7iboMvF_NqToJdS_K5YnmJLgqEPTmf6t1vBDfZc9BTwGSMZG8BcXvOi-SQ0TJCiVuh8MaiZbybhQrWyVujhUcKIVj54qSaq9z3Ur6T_ZfwHbNJTs>*
>
> A few months ago, a colleague at my organization noticed there?s a shortage
> of rapid Covid tests in the U.S., and that these tests are quite expensive,
> while such tests are cheap and ubiquitous in Europe. We did some digging,
> and it turns out that the Food and Drug Administration official who
> approves Covid tests, Tim Stenzel, only approved two of them, and that he
> had worked at both companies. In September, we sent a letter
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJw1kUtuhDAMhk8z2YHyIoRFFt30GigkhokGEpSYUnr6ZooqWbblh37rs7MIS8qX2VNB8nYjXjuYCGdZAREyOQrkMXgjeK8Ep8Qb6ZnuNAllnDPAZsNqMB9A9mNag7MYUnwvMNZxSZ5m4vPQy2FSTFPOYaZM6cErxz11burELWsPHyA6MPAF-UoRyGqeiHt5iI8H_6x2nmfrkzs2iOjWdPg25aXW_2ul5pzRoe9V19zHN5iaAq6ZwEHOtnGpKuQY4tJkuwffIBQsJBhOOWOMdqyjSg4tb6Ef3KylU0zNnHHdvtLPlL6X7iHptvC2HFNB616tSxvJZgvuCVXzBTZHuOrQ8uby161Yxhq3Iwa8Roh2WsHfxPDm_sdwXCBCrv_wo0XDlFCMSy2U0PomVJFKIYeeakWqvE91K5rNIhZM6wr5F_iRnW4>
> on the matter to the government, and contacted multiple members of Congress
> explaining the conflict of interest.
>
> Since our letter, the Biden administration has decided to spend $2 billion
> on rapid testing, and got agreements with Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger to
> reduce
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwtkEuOwyAMhk9TllF4hixYzGauERFwE1QCETjNZE4_tB3Jsi0_ZH-_swhLLpfZc0XychNeO5gEZ42ACIUcFcoUvOFsUJz1xBvhqZaahDrdC8BmQzRYDiD7McfgLIacXguUSibIapTVQg-9HO5Uj0oPfLTeDtxqxSRIrz9n7eEDJAcGnlCunIBEsyLu9ca_buy72Xme3bkGhDW3n7olP1vR5Wfwe7Sp5SQY1jNKaS-p7JUYO9bBMLq7Fk5RdWeU6e6Rf-f8s8ib6LeFdfWYK1r36FzeSDFbcCs08AfYkuBqQ8uL791teFOL25ECXhMkO0fwH3L86PfWYlogQWm6-smioYoryoTmiut_0iaN4GIceq1IO-9z20pms4gVc4xQ_gBQ9Yj1>
> prices, HHS announced $560 million in funds
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlUc3OpCAQfJrxhgFUxjlw-C77GgahVTIIBhpn3aff9puEdEHo6p8qaxDWlC99pILNHSa8DtARPiUAIuSmFsiTd7qTT9VJ3jjdOzEOY-PLtGSA3figMVdojjoHbw36FG-CEIPsm00r7py0w3NUC19ecnaztNIJ6MZecL4M37amOg_RgoYT8pUiNEFviEd5dD8P-YfO5_Npt620azrpZeZUkfCelEByKQgEv--SgrfX7hnlMx9PKFhYosJsUJztPgSakc0pFNqQHTm5apHtJtbFWKzZx5VoNoMpwEo9jnAxc9KiZvbB48VsOr1j4sXwLt1uuIfG63sIIfggBq76VytbeL7sMvZWCbVIIcf2nf7N6e86PHq-r7ItdS5o7Lu1aW-y3r3dgGR_g8kRLkpab3V_f0nciXCvkfpPEM0cwH11x697v05MK0TI5KqbDGqhOiVkP3aqG8evzmRM3_WvJx9VQ-1dIlbUu0EsmEKA_B89HbXA>to
> build out more manufacturing, the NIH and FDA said they will work on
> quickening approval times
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwtUc3SpCAMfJrhhiWIqAcOe9nXsBCiUqMwBXHm83v6jeNWUUn4adLdcRZhSfk0r1SQXWHE8wUmwqdsgAiZHQXyGLxpZKcbWTNvlBd927NQxjkD7DZsBvMB7HVMW3AWQ4oXQIhWKraaRlkvVa8nCUM9tNB5rUXX-V7NdtJC323t4QNEBwbekM8UgW1mRXyVR_PnIf_S-nw-VQxTmCiu1ZLedHbx5ISIWP7vckr7XfJ1Ldy6iw5l7_kUPESq9hBDwfwlymGeU8bCQ3QZbAFCOCj0qS0nJ-08ER_u0hHxm9_BczFwhIKFBSNrKYSoW9HWWg2VrKAb3NwrR8JmKWRfPdPvlH6W9qHqfZFVOaaC1j0rl3aWzR7cCuT0E2yOcNKj5TL0e0t-jpT3IwY8R4h22sDfVuM9sK_54wIRSA340aIRutGC7G500_e3tTQL1aihq3vNqL1PhIpmt4gF07ZB_gcVRLOZ>,
> and the FDA has approved
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxlUc3OpCAQfJrhhhEQxQOHvexrGITWIaMwgdZZv6ffnpnLJpsQ_pquKqq8Q1hzuewzV2TvacLrCTbBq26ACIUdFcoUg1Vy6JVsWbBdEEYbFuu0FIDdxc1iOYA9j3mL3mHM6d0ghJYdu9vQgxukMK0avTajHuZFqHaBZdFCdlp_ad0RIiQPFk4oV07ANntHfNab-nWTv2m8Xq9mCa5Z80mnHQJxbTzAGT1UuvG55OTOWI7KQ6zgKnDZipH7fMbAaQM7lJVILk6f4u7Aey7x5yO48v8BY-JnxJIJza2JREZfORyucpcwEtA_BY5QsfLqSn3zccmila0UQrRa6LbvxkY2MIx-MZ3vRb9IIU3zyD9z_rPqW9fuq2zqMVd0_tH4vLNi9-jvQCk8wJUEFz1a32Z_quT1ROt-pIjXBMnNG4RvDPgN8xPMRCqhUMhhcmhFr3qy3KheGfO1nXLqVDcOrekZ0YdMXcnuDrFi3jYofwFQab1y>
> more rapid testing products.
>
> We also gave our letter to ProPublica, who did a great story
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwtkd2OtCAMhq9mOMMIIuIBB3vy3YbhpyoZBQN1XL-rX2Znk6Zt-pO3eeoMwpLyrY9UkLzdhPcBOsJVNkCETM4CeQped3yQHW-J18Iz1SsSyjRngN2ETWM-gRyn3YIzGFJ8LzDWc0FWPVhrJVg1q9mIdrBezfMw9iMI1zvv5UfWnD5AdKDhBflOEcimV8SjPLqvB_9X7bqu5sjpT6VJealFkzG4DWq2QoZCr_Wm2RzBU5de1SMULNRkoCVR-D4glvACaqKnq8m1n-gcoidB85Yzxtqe9a0UY8MbGEY3K-EkkzNnXDXP9N-m76V_iHZfeFNOW9C4Z-PSTrLeg1uhMnuCyRHuOrS80fx2681TjfsZA94TRGM38B9o-EH_i3FaIEKuL_GTQc1kJxkXqpOdUh9IlaroxDi0SpIq71Pdino3iAXTtkH-AYNRoKc>
> digging in to just what happened to cause this problem in the first place.
> That story got published
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwtkd2OtCAMhq9mOMMIIuIBB3vy3YbhpyoZBQN1XL-rX2Znk6Zt-pO3eeoMwpLyrY9UkLzdhPcBOsJVNkCETM4CeQped3yQHW-J18Iz1SsSyjRngN2ETWM-gRyn3YIzGFJ8LzDWc0FWPVhrJVg1q9mIdrBezfMw9iMI1zvv5UfWnD5AdKDhBflOEcimV8SjPLqvB_9X7bqu5sjpT6VJealFkzG4DWq2QoZCr_Wm2RzBU5de1SMULNRkoCVR-D4glvACaqKnq8m1n-gcoidB85Yzxtqe9a0UY8MbGEY3K-EkkzNnXDXP9N-m76V_iHZfeFNOW9C4Z-PSTrLeg1uhMnuCyRHuOrS80fx2681TjfsZA94TRGM38B9o-EH_i3FaIEKuL_GTQc1kJxkXqpOdUh9IlaroxDi0SpIq71Pdino3iAXTtkH-AYNRoKc>
> yesterday. The FDA comes out looking timid and softly corrupt, with one
> official quitting in frustration over the failure to approve more tests.
> There were no open payoffs, no smoking gun, just a bureaucratic run-around
> where the FDA simply refused to accept reasonable data (especially if it
> was collected abroad), and treated firms it had recruited to produce tests
> as criminals in a Kafka-esque bureaucracy.
>
> It?s easy to blame a revolving door, but the real cause is that our
> government is full of people who simply believe that big powerful
> corporations are competent and trustworthy, and that competition is bad.
> And Stenzel is one of them. As ProPublica noted.
>
> Shuren and Stenzel recommended a year ago in their New England Journal of
> Medicine column that the U.S. government should have authorized a handful
> of tests and had the CDC contract with those manufacturers, rather than
> trying to vet thousands of diagnostics, which they called ?an inefficient
> use of resources.?
>
> This is the theory behind the national champion idea of industrial policy.
> Dominant well-branded firms, the thinking goes, know what they are doing,
> so let them drive development. A motley group of smaller entrepreneurs
> doing whatever they want would be inefficient. Yet in this case, as in most
> cases, having a duopoly ended up turning into a disaster. Abbott, for
> instance, not only gouged customers, but actually destroyed
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlkEmOhDAMRU9T2TUiAyEssuhNXwNlMFRUkKDEFE2fvkMhWd-WB335OYMwp3zqLRUkl4x4bqAjHGUBRMhkL5DH4DVnveSsJV4LT1WnSCjjlAFWExaNeQey7XYJzmBI8TqgtGOCPDUAM54Ok-W9kRIoSDtNfpD9wH1Lh-G2NbsPEB1oeEM-UwSy6CfiVh78-8F-ahzH0cQTwwqlcWmtHdYyWlOrPnWVvVQx1ibEL5fewX8hFCzNE9eFBH3tU9p2tGulGBrWQD-4SQknqZwYZap5pT-bfufuIdp1Zk3ZbUHjXpcfyXoN7gkVywtMjnDWpfn6_jOtz481r3sMeI4QjV3A31zwpvshNc4QIVfqfjSoqeSSMqG45ErdHCo4wcXQt0qSau9TvYp6NYgF07JA_geR9JJO>
> tests for financial reasons instead of selling them. (They also apparently
> refused to sell tests to independent pharmacies, only dealing with the big
> chains.)
>
> Stenzel?s policy choice has been a failure. And now that the FDA has
> approved more tests, competition is coming online. So what?s the result?
>
> "On an earnings call in October, Abbott CEO Robert Ford said the company
> anticipated dropping its price to maintain its market share, but wouldn?t
> if competition didn?t make it necessary."
>
> And there we go. Stenzel, incidentally, has a sweet mustache, which you can
> see here
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkE2OhCAQhU_T7NoAItILFrOZaxh-SiWNYLDsGef0g-1mJqEgqVfFy_ucQZhyOfSaNyTnNeCxgk7wtUVAhEL2DcoQvG55L1tOidfCM9UpErZhLACLCVFj2YGsu43BGQw5nQuMdVyQWfeMdyBAsbZ34Gxvxeh7MFTWBrWCXbZm9wGSAw0vKEdOQKKeEdft1n7c-Gc9i0HcMMcIpdl2u6Fxz8blpUprLZzhvuxndwZ_f4UYTUh3C3NI_l5FEjSnnDFGO9ZRKR4Nb6B_uFEJJ5kcOeOqeeYfm7-n7iboMvF_NqToJdS_K5YnmJLgqEPTmf6t1vBDfZc9BTwGSMZG8BcXvOi-SQ0TJCiVuh8MaiZbybhQrWyVujhUcKIVj54qSaq9z3Ur6T_ZfwHbNJTs>
> .
> ------------------------------
>
> Thanks for reading. Send me tips on weird monopolies, stories I?ve missed,
> or comments by clicking on the title of this newsletter. And if you liked
> this issue of BIG, you can sign up here
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVksuSqjAURb-mmWkREl4DBkqLtOCjbZ9MqEDCSxJoiAp8_cV2dKtSyWDn1K46a8VY0LRqequuWiG9rlD0NbU4fbYlFYI20r2lTZgTCyq6BhVZIhYiwFANKW_DpKGU4by0RHOnUn2PyjzGIq_4awAAVUFSZilE1hDFUAGIGJGBdBUlOlABBAlCekLftfhOcspjatEHbfqKU6m0MiHqDzj7UJzx_BVNWQqm7T1qBY5v07hiYxC_wlV3Oq6d-7OfrcOgfhZfM3Y9QHR0LyKSvxd8_rP5nu3ZKVEn9QZkt36IaIMp1Hf7bCHW227OrvmpWNayE1SLBpPD4jLXeeZnvypyRJD4W-x-da4jbNNfFZ9D1m2Orc69Q8mXrcj23icrJi0iX9etnCvdsS98EWTrWYGKM9vNAubOzeWZmdvylsT4t488x4cu2F77gPjsdzh1DV7ziajSuLfV7W4zDAf4oObZO_Ef2KtnH2F13PyOBOauI3s3tJ3cvphIu8zQw9cPeHkW5AfactEVsrpZ2PXVW8OHiWxMzO9ngYa5tlr7cP7UUZw5dus2XhenEapCw53sV8BLpdxSZAUAIKtAHaGZU2VKdTNODBRrQEsUoBjTWzVEVZeqH0hmqfIfDKmxWB5ndDTnRnHDaT9-Sv-4vdLRj3B82Z3nog8px1FJyVsd8Rbwj3GYUj6yEZSEWFhAgxpQkAE1aBhvVUa3EESmLhuaNNaTapziFsNCtKIqS9r8A3t180g>
> for
> more issues of BIG, a newsletter on how to restore fair commerce,
> innovation and democracy. And consider becoming a paying subscriber
> <https://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxVkMtuxCAMRb9mWEbhEQYWLLqZ30AEnAyaBCJw2qZfXzLZtJJly_Lj6lzvEOZcDrPliuRMFo8NTIKvugAiFLJXKDYGw9ldctaTYESgalAkVjsVgNXFxWDZgWz7uETvMOZ0HlA6MEGeJkxSS--09pQzPXEVRk6VlsF5GFQ_XLJuDxGSBwOfUI6cgCzmibjVG_-4sUeL1SFWzMsCpav7WNH5V-fz2kZn60scgUTDekYp7Qc69FLojnVw135SwksqJ0aZ6l75Z8zf83AT_Tqzf79IMWv0T2jsL3AlwdGW5hPxPW2EttV1TxEPC8mNC4QLHi8L33bYGRKUZm2wDg2VXFImFJdcqQu2uSO40PdeSdLkQ25XyfwB_AVoQ4tz>
> to support this work.
>
> cheers,
>
> Matt Stoller
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/5d35230c/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 14
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2021 19:35:25 -0400
> From: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
> To: "[Salon]" <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
> Subject: [Salon] Inside the Unraveling of American Zionism
> Message-ID:
> <CANbmmQkY+6UpPZdXhot-jqCR3723m_8KVd+E-32QCgAqxDWxmw@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Inside the Unraveling of American Zionism
>
> How a new generation of Jewish leaders began to rethink their support for
> Israel.
> [image: The New York Times]
>
> By Marc Tracy <https://www.nytimes.com/by/marc-tracy>
>
> - Published Nov. 2, 2021Updated Nov. 3, 2021
>
> It began, as so much these days does, with a group chat. Early this year,
> around 20 rabbinical and cantorial students started a WhatsApp thread they
> eventually named ?Rad Future Clergy.? Among them, they attended rabbinical
> schools in five different U.S. cities. Several of them first became friends
> while studying and working in a sixth city, Jerusalem, the capital of the
> land that both the Torah and Israel?s declaration of independence deem the
> place for ?the ingathering of the exiles.?
>
> In April, the texting heated up. A longstanding effort by a right-wing
> Jewish group to assume ownership of Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah, an
> East Jerusalem neighborhood, was coming to a head. Israel?s government
> characterized the issue as a mere ?real estate dispute,? which was true in
> a narrow sense but elided the winding history of the homes? ownership ?
> which changed hands as the land beneath them did over the course of two
> wars ? as well as the Jewish group?s frank goal of altering East
> Jerusalem?s demographics to secure it permanently for Israel. Protests in
> the neighborhood spread to the nearby Temple Mount, a holy site for both
> Jews and Muslims, where riot police fired rubber bullets and Arab
> protesters threw stones following Friday prayers.
>
> There have been weekly protests against the Sheikh Jarrah evictions for
> <https://www.972mag.com/protest-sheikh-jarrah-palestinian-evictions/>years
> <https://www.haaretz.com/1.5146560>, and the broader conflict is of course
> much older than that. But at no recent time has there seemed less of a
> chance that Israelis and Palestinians will reach a peace agreement that
> might establish a Palestinian state on land presently occupied or annexed
> by Israel. Israeli politics are so sclerotic that it required four
> elections in two years to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu, an unpopular prime
> minister facing corruption charges, with a coalition that, despite the
> historic presence of an Arab party, is unlikely to significantly alter the
> country?s approach to Palestinian issues. Israel?s newfound friendliness
> <https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-emergence-of-gcc-israel-relations-in-a-changing-middle-east/>
> with
> powerful neighbors like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has
> actually lessened the international pressure to make concessions to the
> Palestinians, whose own politics are static and divided.
>
> In the second week of May, a few members of the group chat convened on Zoom
> and drafted an open letter calling on American Jews to adjust their
> orientation toward Israel. By this time, the conflict had begun to widen:
> Hamas, the militant Islamist party that controls the Gaza Strip, fired
> hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns in response to clashes on the Temple
> Mount; Israel retaliated with airstrikes against Hamas, which responded in
> turn with more rockets. Street fighting broke out between Jewish and Arab
> civilians in several Israeli cities. Eventually more than 250 were killed,
> including 12 civilians in Israel and over 100 in Gaza.
>
> ?Blood is flowing in the streets of the Holy Land,? the letter began
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/17iNzy0uThn6YECqiBx9t_R-WAHF7m2Kkxxiq8v0IfPA/edit>.
> ?For those of us for whom Israel has represented hope and justice, we need
> to give ourselves permission to watch, to acknowledge what we see, to mourn
> and to cry. And then, to change our behavior and demand better.? They urged
> Jews to rethink their support for American military aid to Israel, which
> totals roughly $3.8 billion annually. They insisted that Jewish educators
> complicate their teaching of Israel?s founding to convey ?the messy truth
> of a persecuted people searching for safety, going to a land full of
> meaning for the Jewish people, full of meaning for so many other peoples,
> and also full of human beings who didn?t ask for new neighbors.?
>
> The letter contained several provocations. It compared the Palestinians?
> plight to that of Black Americans ? a group whose struggles for civil
> rights have long been embraced by the same establishment the letter was
> calling out. ?American Jews have been part of a racial reckoning in our
> community,? they said. ?And yet,? they added, ?so many of those same
> institutions are silent when abuse of power and racist violence erupts in
> Israel and Palestine.? It described in Israel ?two separate legal systems
> for the same region,? and later called this system ?apartheid.? It arrived
> amid war, violating the imperative many Jews felt to stand with Israel as
> the rockets fly. And it did not contain alongside its indictment of
> Israel?s actions a straightforward condemnation of Hamas?s aiming weapons
> at civilians.
>
> There are an extraordinary 93 names at the bottom of the letter, which can
> still be seen on the Google Doc where it was posted
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/17iNzy0uThn6YECqiBx9t_R-WAHF7m2Kkxxiq8v0IfPA/edit>.
> They hailed from eight institutions, virtually every one in the United
> States that trains rabbis and cantors ? the vocalists who lead
> congregations in prayer ? outside of Orthodox Judaism. (The conservative
> politics and strong pro-Israel outlook of Orthodox Judaism, which
> represents about 10 percent of American Jews, practically meant there would
> be no signers from Orthodox seminaries.) Some 17 percent of the
> institutions? students signed the letter, according to figures provided by
> the schools, even though signatures were open only for a brief period of
> time, and even though virtually all the students I spoke to, signers or
> not, believed attaching their names to the letter meant risking career
> prospects. The signers? breadth was underlined when the letter was published
> <https://forward.com/scribe/469583/gates-of-tears-rabbinical-and-cantorial-students-stand-for-solidarity-with/>
> in
> The Forward, America?s most prominent Jewish newspaper, on May 13 under six
> bylines, deliberately chosen to represent a variety of schools. ?It?s clear
> to me,? said Lex Rofeberg, a rabbi and co-host of the ?Judaism Unbound?
> podcast, ?that this list includes future leaders of American Judaism.?
>
> ?All of our texts were written during a history when we were the victims.
> What do we do now that we have power??
>
> The seminaries? communities erupted with arguments. Rabbi Bradley Shavit
> Artson, the dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, a seminary in
> Los Angeles, objected to the letter in a concerned opinion column
> <https://forward.com/scribe/469900/my-rabbinical-students-letter-shows-imbalance-and-a-lack-of-empathyfor/>
> in
> The Forward six days later. He told me he responded publicly to make clear
> where the institution stood in light of a couple of Ziegler students?
> having signed, and to answer in the same forum as the original letter. A
> teacher at the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
> Religion, the largest American seminary and the flagship of the Reform
> movement ? itself easily the largest denomination in the U.S. ? emailed
> signers there saying he was ?troubled and hurt.? One signer even had a
> rabbinical internship revoked. Several rabbis criticized the letter in High
> Holy Day sermons, opinion essays, Facebook posts. One rabbi in
> Massachusetts said he hoped that, were he to die suddenly, nobody who
> signed the letter would be hired to replenish his synagogue?s ranks.
>
> The letter may as well have been engineered to stir up longstanding
> anxieties. One American Jewish obsession is something euphemistically
> called ?continuity,? and might more prosaically be called ?future Jewish
> babies who will grow up to have more Jewish babies.? Will Jews intermarry
> out of existence? Will they stop attending synagogue, even on the High Holy
> Days? Has the median American Jew ? Ashkenazic, native-born, lightly
> religious ? become a white person who knows a potato pancake is called a
> latke? For a worried establishment, Israel ? along with memory of the
> Holocaust, whose firsthand witnesses grow fewer every year ? has been the
> solution. Like a flying buttress, Israel has held up the American Jewish
> community from the outside: a living instantiation of thriving Jewish
> peoplehood that can be utilized to strengthen the world?s largest Diaspora
> community, whose synagogues sometimes hang an Israeli flag alongside the
> American one and many of whose seminaries require students to spend time
> studying in Israel. ?American Jews are not that worried about how American
> Jews feel about God, because God?s not such an important religious symbol
> in American Jewish life,? Shaul Kelner, a sociologist at Vanderbilt
> University, told me. ?Israel and the Holocaust are.?
>
> The letter intimated not only that the pro-Israel consensus is fraying,
> which has been apparent for a while, but something else, too: That the
> primary cause of this fraying may not be something as straightforward as
> the actions of Israel?s governments or the assimilation of American Jews.
> Instead, a generation of Jews is confronting head-on the tension between
> Jewish universalist principles and the idea of Jewish particularity ? that
> Jews possess special obligations toward one another. For years, American
> Jews could look upon Israel as a tiny state full of long-oppressed people
> with hostile neighbors, and even see themselves as underdogs in their own
> country, so this tension could remain largely out of view.
>
> The letter entered this fraught terrain when it asked American Jews to view
> the Mideast conflict structurally, as another instance of one powerful
> group?s oppressing the less powerful one. This was its most profound and
> destabilizing argument: That Jews, after two dozen centuries of
> dispossession, persecution and exile have the upper hand and the
> responsibility to act like it. Hannah Bender, a third-year student at
> Hebrew Union College, put it to me this way: ?All of our texts were written
> during a history when we were the victims. What do we do now that we have
> power??
>
> Most living American Jews grew up during an era when strong support for
> Israel was a cornerstone of the community. Attending preschool, day school
> or Hebrew School, a Jewish child dropped coins into blue-and-white tins for
> the Jewish National Fund, the early Zionist organization founded to support
> the pre-state community. Every year, he attended a summer camp where he
> learned to sing Zionist folk anthems. For his birthday and bar mitzvah, he
> received Israel Bonds and trees planted in Israel in his name; if he
> visited Israel, he physically planted the tree himself. If he was a young
> adult in the last 20 years, he may have visited Israel for 10 days on
> Birthright Israel?s dime, where he rode a camel, rafted the Jordan, visited
> the Western Wall on a Friday night and got to know Israeli soldiers who
> hopped on the bus for a few days. Back home, he tracked the news and hunted
> the American media for manifestations of bias. He attended an AIPAC
> convention, perhaps through his Hillel or AEPi; he might have gone on a
> March of the Living trip, in which students travel to Poland to visit
> Auschwitz, and then to Israel to observe Memorial Day and Independence Day.
>
> The pro-Israel consensus transcends partisan politics. The Pew Research
> Center?s surveys are considered the gold standard of research into American
> Jewish opinion, and the one this year was anticipated by the Jewish
> establishment with the trepidation of Floridians eyeing a tropical
> depression in the Gulf. Released in May, the survey found
> <https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/> that 82
> percent of American Jews said that supporting Israel was essential or
> important to ?what being Jewish means to them.? The same number also
> identified as liberal or moderate, and a large majority said they leaned
> Democratic. Yet, among Jews under 30, Pew found lower emotional attachment
> to Israel, lower approval for Netanyahu and higher support for the Boycott,
> Divestment and Sanctions movement, as have other recent studies. (Some
> argue that such findings obscure American Jews? tendency to age into
> pro-Israel sentiments.)
>
> But this consensus is relatively recent. The official policy of Reform
> Judaism at the outset of Zionism, as set by the so-called Pittsburgh
> Platform <https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-pittsburgh-platform> of
> 1885, was antipathy to the very idea of a Jewish nation-state in the Holy
> Land. In 1898, a year after Theodor Herzl?s First Zionist Congress in
> Switzerland, the association of Reform congregations in America declared
> itself ?unalterably opposed to political Zionism.? Why? ?America is our
> Zion.? The tide turned in the coming decades, according to the historian
> Jonathan D. Sarna?s ?American Judaism,? when prominent Jews like the
> Progressive lawyer Louis D. Brandeis announced his support for a Jewish
> state. The ideology truly gained purchase in the Jewish community during
> the Holocaust?s aftermath and the founding of Israel itself in 1948.
>
> And then came the Six-Day War. Thomas L. Friedman, a former Times Jerusalem
> bureau chief, writes memorably in his book ?From Beirut to Jerusalem? of
> watching the news on June 6, 1967: ?Like so many American Jews of my
> generation, I was momentarily swept up by this heroic Israel, which
> captured my imagination and made me feel different about myself as a Jew.?
> The swift Israeli victory over several Arab armies that had planned to
> attack, resulting in the conquests of the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan
> Heights, the West Bank and East Jerusalem ? complete with an image of
> Jewish soldiers standing at the Western Wall, a holy site Jews had not been
> allowed to visit for nearly two decades ? marked the sea change, turning a
> proud brand of Zionism into an article of faith for most American Jews.
>
> ?The assumptions young Jews grew up with about Israel have been shattered
> at the same time that assumptions about antisemitism being in the past and
> Jews becoming white folks were shattered.?
>
> In the years following ?67, the Palestinian cause steadily gained ground on
> the world stage. Still, young boomers, Gen-Xers and even those of us born
> in the 1980s, who have charmingly been labeled ?geriatric millennials,?
> grew up with an optimistic view of the peace process, particularly since,
> as Jews, we typically viewed it through an Israeli lens. There was peace
> with Egypt, and then with Jordan. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands
> with the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, on the White House lawn in 1993,
> before his martyrdom. (Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli Jew
> two years later.) When the Israel-Palestine agreement, the Oslo Accords,
> failed to lead to peace and Palestinian suicide bombers killed hundreds of
> Israeli civilians in buses and cafes during the Second Intifada of the
> early 2000s, the specter of terrorism first anticipated and then was
> wrapped into 9/11, casting Israelis as righteous victims. This story was
> incomplete, of course, but it provided narrative coherence to young minds
> eager for it.
>
> By contrast, if you are 26 years old, you were not yet born when Oslo was
> signed and do not more than faintly remember the height of the Second
> Intifada. Your impression of Israel could well be of an occupying power and
> a fortress protected by militarized barriers and the U.S.-funded Iron Dome
> missile-defense system ? a powerful country that, during a 2014 war in
> Gaza, responded to Hamas?s killing of three Israeli teenagers and the
> firing of rockets at Israeli towns with airstrikes and ground incursions
> that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, including many noncombatants.
> Israel to you is personified not by Rabin, or the senior statesman Shimon
> Peres, or even the reformed hawk Ariel Sharon, but by Netanyahu, who not
> only presided over more settlement construction in the West Bank but sided
> with the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate on matters both religious and civil,
> attempted to hamstring liberal NGOs, engaged in racial demagogy against
> Palestinians and made common cause with Republicans, including and
> especially Donald J. Trump.
>
> This 26-year-old would have seen Republicans use a dogmatic pro-Israel
> stance as a political cudgel, while the Democratic center of gravity on the
> subject, while still strongly pro-Israel, had moved leftward. Our
> 26-year-old has also seen Israel?s government explicitly embrace right-wing
> American evangelicals, who are devoted Zionists, while disdaining American
> Jews. This May, Ron Dermer, a longtime Netanyahu adviser and former Israeli
> ambassador to the U.S., dismissed
> <https://www.timesofisrael.com/dermer-suggests-israel-should-prioritize-support-of-evangelicals-over-us-jews/>
> American Jews as ?disproportionately among our critics.?
>
> Several academic studies over the past decade have gone looking for
> disengagement with Israel among young Jews. Instead, some have found
> passionate involvement, but on politically different terms than the
> establishment might prefer. Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel studies at
> U.C.L.A., relied on Pew data in a 2017 paper that found that millennial
> Jews engage with Israel, even when young, as much as previous generations
> did ? they were just more likely to question its actions and policies. ?In
> the past, support was really unconditional, unequivocal,? Waxman told me.
> ?Most American Jews today believe it?s entirely possible to be pro-Israel
> and at the same time critical of many Israeli government policies,
> especially policies toward the Palestinians.?
>
> The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center is a bucolic combination
> kibbutz and summer camp situated in the hills of northwestern Connecticut,
> in a town appropriately called Canaan. One afternoon in August, Leah
> Nussbaum, who signed the letter in the spring and is now in their fifth and
> final year at H.U.C.?s campus in New York, took a break from farming and
> met me on a gravel road. Nussbaum, who is 28, was one of 10 fellows at the
> center?s farm last summer. The fellows woke early every morning for prayer
> and meditation at 6, did chores, took classes on farming and Judaism and
> tended to the land throughout the day. They grew leeks, tartly sweet
> blueberries and juicy Sungold cherry tomatoes, all pollinated by bees they
> kept. On Saturdays, they rested ? though they still milked the goats, to
> alleviate the goats? discomfort, and then gave the milk to neighbors who do
> not observe Shabbat. The ordinarily vegetarian Nussbaum had eaten a
> farm-raised chicken the night before I met them, after watching the bird
> ritually killed in the kosher manner by a shochet. ?There?s a lot of
> intentionality,? Nussbaum said, ?and that feels Jewish ? thinking
> deliberately about what you?re doing.?
>
> After we weeded the potato plants and toured the center, which hosts
> holiday events and retreats for the Jewish institutional world, Nussbaum
> and I sat in Adirondack chairs under a tent and talked a while. Growing up,
> Nussbaum was ensconced in a welcoming Jewish community, a Reform
> congregation in the Boston area that was a haven from the homophobia they
> experienced in public school, and supported their interest in interfaith
> work. H.U.C., too, was agreeable; in particular, Nussbaum praised its
> year-in-Israel program for exposing them to all kinds of Israelis and
> Palestinians.
>
> ?The modern state of Israel is a country like any other country,? Nussbaum
> said. ?It has problems with discrimination, racism. That doesn?t reflect
> what I believe are Jewish values, even though it?s a Jewish state. And I
> think there can be a state that reflects Jewish values and ethics. Israel
> can do a lot better.? Nussbaum continued, ?I signed this letter because I
> feel it is Jewish to also support Palestinians.?
>
> The fellowship is part of a broader trend among Jews in progressive spaces
> who have sought to align aspects of their identity ? like political leftism
> and queerness ? with their Judaism. When I met the farm director, she was
> wearing a shirt for Linke Fligl ? Yiddish for ?left wing? ? an organization
> that calls itself a ?queer Jewish chicken farm and cultural organizing
> project.? Another afternoon this summer, I spoke to two women who work at
> Mayyim Hayyim, a mikveh, or ritual bath, in Newton, Mass. Submerging in a
> mikveh is best known as the final thing one does in converting to Judaism,
> and in some Orthodox communities women use one every month and after
> childbirth ? when the female body is considered ?impure? by Jewish law. But
> Mayyim Hayyim seeks to ?reclaim? the mikveh from its patriarchal practices,
> and has developed rituals for all kinds of life events; by the end of our
> call, they were trying to persuade me to take a dip in honor of having
> recently become a father. I also heard about SVARA, a yeshiva that centers
> the queer experience. It somehow did not shock me each time I learned of a
> new program with crunchy elements and noticed the participation of a
> student whose name was familiar to me from the letter?s signers.
>
> ?People are thirsty,? said Amalia Mark, who signed the letter last spring,
> weeks before she was ordained at Hebrew College ? a multidenominational
> seminary outside Boston that is not to be confused with Hebrew Union
> College ? and who now works at Mayyim Hayyim. ?People want meaning and
> connection in their life right now, and people want authentic tradition.?
>
> The existence of a Jewish left is not novel. From Trotsky to Chomsky, it is
> practically a clich?. However, Jewish leftists have usually been secular:
> the Lower East Side socialists, kibbutzniks, Bernie Sanders. The new Jewish
> left is distinguished by the degree to which it embraces Jewish law and
> ritual and draws on Jewish texts to articulate its politics. A recent oral
> history
> <https://jewishcurrents.org/what-the-jewish-left-learned-from-occupy> in
> Jewish Currents ? a magazine that is itself a part of this movement ?
> convincingly argues that this current wave arose 10 years ago out of Occupy
> Wall Street. Across from Zuccotti Park, activists held Kol Nidre ? the
> annual Yom Kippur service in which Jews are relieved from promises they
> make to God. The anti-occupation group IfNotNow?s first action, in 2014,
> was to recite publicly the Mourner?s Kaddish for Palestinian (and Israeli)
> victims during that year?s conflict in Gaza. The ?Judaism Unbound? podcast
> seeks to reinterpret Jewish texts from a leftist perspective. And Jewish
> Currents, founded in 1946 as a Stalinist publication, was relaunched three
> years ago by leftist millennials, who have used it to document this
> movement. The magazine, which publishes quarterly, is now a home for
> perhaps the community?s prime apostate, Peter Beinart, once a hawkish New
> Republic editor who now favors a single binational state ? rather than a
> Jewish nation-state ? an observant Jew who during the conflict in May made
> his call
> <https://jewishcurrents.org/teshuvah-a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return>
> for Israel to permit the full return of Palestinian refugees in the name of
> teshuvah, the atonement required of all Jews every year before Yom Kippur.
> Like the letter-signers, these groups do not represent a majority of their
> generational cohort, much less all American Jews, but they are effective at
> presenting themselves as a vanguard.
>
> Like any leftist vanguard, they have awakened a reaction. In May, hardly a
> week before the students? letter was published, a group called the Jewish
> Institute for Liberal Values published an open letter
> <https://jilv.org/be-heard/> that The Forward dubbed
> <https://forward.com/news/468968/jewish-harpers-letter-decries-lack-of-dissent-in-racial-justice-movement/>
> the
> ?Jewish ?Harper?s letter,?? a reference to another open letter in Harper?s
> Magazine that denounced illiberal groupthink and discourse-policing among
> progressives. This new letter blamed antiracist ideology ?in which groups
> are only oppressors or oppressed? for encouraging ?pernicious notions of
> ?Jewish privilege,? even implicating Jews in ?white supremacy.?? As May?s
> conflict in Gaza and Israel burst open, an article in Tablet ? an online
> Jewish magazine that in recent years has persistently questioned the
> implications of the new social-justice ideology for Jews ? accused
> <https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/jamaal-bowman-liel-leibovitz>progressive
> politicians who compared the treatment of Black people by the U.S. to
> Palestinians by Israel of ?grafting a domestic psychodrama onto a foreign
> region ? and endangering American Jews in the process.? (I was a Tablet
> staff writer from 2009 to 2012.)
>
> But it is not hard to see why young Americans who recently awakened to a
> new way of thinking about racism in their own country would find parallels
> in Israel. Evan Traylor, a second-year student at Hebrew Union College?s
> New York campus who signed the letter, felt the connection while touring a
> refugee camp outside Bethlehem. His group passed a poster featuring a boy
> putatively shot and killed by the Israeli military, and someone remarked
> that they didn?t believe it ? that there must have been more to the story.
> ?Even though it happens all the time in the U.S.!? he said to me
> incredulously. ?As a Black Jew, there?s a really powerful connection. I
> felt it differently, perhaps, than a lot of white Jews.?
>
> When Elana Rabishaw, a fifth-year student at H.U.C.?s L.A. campus, saw the
> letter signed by many of her contemporaries on Facebook, she knew she
> wanted to respond ? but not right away. ?Israel was under attack, and my
> friends in Israel were getting called up and running to bomb shelters,? she
> told me this summer. ?It didn?t feel like the time to be fighting with my
> classmates in America.? Once a cease-fire had been established, she and a
> few other rabbinical students who had gone to Israel on a fellowship
> affiliated with AIPAC chatted for a while about what they wished to say.
> She wrote a response, they signed it and it was published in The Forward
> near the end of May. ?The sheer volume of colleagues on the letter made us
> reticent to speak up,? her letter said
> <https://forward.com/scribe/470464/our-fellow-rabbinical-students-are-wrong-to-criticize-israel-when-its/?fbclid=IwAR2REYe3xYVTDHuc8k8_EjgNOeorrX0M7g6QpImf2-FMVubVrcR6gWgqwn8>,
> ?but we know that any conversation about Israel deserves nuance and
> dialogue and that to remain silent is to leave the impression to the Jewish
> community that you speak for all of us ? which you don?t.?
>
> When I met Rabishaw, who is 27, in L.A. in August, she was coming from
> American Jewish University in Bel Air, home to both the Ziegler School ?
> run by Rabbi Artson, the vocal opponent of the letter ? and a mikveh; she
> had been assisting in a conversion. She is a rabbinical intern at
> Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, which has been a bastion for
> L.G.B.T.Q. Jews for more than 25 years and was founded by Rabbi Denise L.
> Eger, the first openly gay president of Reform Judaism?s rabbinical
> association. ?I?ve learned from her how to share and teach progressive
> values, and those are not incongruous with being a passionate Zionist,?
> Rabishaw told me. Her response in The Forward alluded to this: ?As
> rabbinical students who support other liberal causes,? it said, ?we were
> especially troubled by the equation of Israel and Hamas.? Or, as she put it
> to me: ?They didn?t mention Hamas, the terrorist organization that was
> necessitating Israel?s counterattack. War didn?t happen because they
> decided they didn?t like the Palestinian people.? As for the letter,
> Rabishaw explained: ?I wasn?t shocked that this was the direction that a
> lot of my classmates would take. However, I was pretty disappointed that
> there was such a lack of ahavat Yisrael in a time when Israel was under
> attack.?
>
> The phrase ?ahavat Yisrael? came up again and again in my conversations
> with those who objected to the letter. It translates as ?love of Israel? ?
> ?Israel,? which refers in this case to the Jewish people, who for centuries
> before the political state were known as Israelites. Rabbi Sharon Cohen
> Anisfeld, the president of Hebrew College, told her students in an email
> that she wished the letter had embraced the principle, and described how a
> version of it that did might have read: ?It would have sounded like a
> willingness to affirm the dignity and sanctity of all human life,? she
> wrote, ?and at the same time hold a special place in your heart for the
> Jewish people you have dedicated your life to serving ? not because our
> lives matter more than any other lives, God forbid, but because we are
> responsible to and for each other.?
>
> Hannah Bender, the H.U.C. student who helped write the letter, argued that
> it was rooted in ahavat Yisrael after all: ?These things are a stain on the
> Jewish soul. They corrode our history. I make these critiques because I so
> deeply love the Jewish people and do not want us to be part of it.?
>
> There were other indications of a quieter majority among young Jews who
> still supported Israel. In May, while social media blew up with memes, some
> accusing Israel of being not just in the wrong at the moment but
> fundamentally illegitimate ? not a state at all, but a ?settler colony?
> <https://www.instagram.com/p/CNz9-5tMkso/?igshid=tdiaxo33sqve> ? I noticed
> Jewish friends whom I did not know to be particularly political or engaged
> on Israel asserting their support. One asked his followers to consider the
> scope of Jewish history and then ?imagine being called a ?colonizer? after
> all that.?
>
> Sarna, the author of ?American Judaism,? is also a professor of American
> Jewish history at Brandeis University, and he told me an anecdote that
> seemed to jibe with polls that continue to find
> <https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-middle-east-race-and-ethnicity-religion-811fb850be613d16eec24949596603a9>
> majority
> support for Israel among American Jews. Sarna has periodically taught a
> class on American antisemitism but was considering never doing so again
> because enrollment was often low. Still, he decided to offer it one more
> time, in the Spring 2019 semester. Initially, there was little interest.
> Then, in October 2018, the deadliest mass-killing targeting Jews in
> American history occurred when a gunman killed 11 people in Pittsburgh?s
> Tree of Life synagogue. The class?s enrollment wound up tripling from the
> last time he had taught it.
>
> ?The assumptions young Jews grew up with about Israel have been shattered
> at the same time that assumptions about antisemitism being in the past and
> Jews becoming white folks were shattered,? Sarna said. ?Where does that put
> us??
>
> Over the summer, Max Buchdahl, a 25-year-old second-year student at the
> Jewish Theological Seminary, moved into an apartment in Washington Heights,
> blocks from where his grandfather?s family lived after they left Germany in
> 1938. The grandfather became a Reform rabbi in Baltimore, where Buchdahl
> grew up. ?I was very much the grandson of the rabbi,? Buchdahl told me.
> ?Everyone had babysat my dad.? When Buchdahl decided to become a rabbi, he
> chose the largest seminary of Conservative Judaism, which is generally more
> stringent about Jewish law than Reform. He wears a kipa and tzitzit, the
> fringes that hang down from the waist, which puts him on the pious end of
> the Conservative spectrum. And following a childhood of nonspecific but
> steady support for Israel, he signed May?s letter and was one of the
> strongest critics of Zionism among the students I spoke to.
>
> Buchdahl?s transformation began during his undergraduate years at Temple
> University. During the 2014 Gaza war, he read more about the history of the
> conflict, in particular about an incident in Israel?s War of Independence
> in 1948 ? known to Palestinians as the Nakba, the Catastrophe ? in which
> Zionist forces deported tens of thousands of Palestinians from Lydda, a
> city that is now the site of Israel?s main airport. After college, Buchdahl
> worked at the American Jewish Committee, an establishment institution, and
> was turned off by its deferential support for Israel.
>
> A reliable subcurrent in American students? conversions away from the
> ardent Zionism of their youth is firsthand confrontation with reality in
> the West Bank. Groups like Breaking the Silence (run by Israel Defense
> Forces veterans), T?ruah (?The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights?) and
> Encounter organize daylong and overnight trips to West Bank cities where
> participants meet with members of Palestinian civil society. (I attended an
> Encounter trip to Bethlehem nine years ago.) Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T?ruah?s
> chief executive, said her program engages roughly four of five seminarians
> during their Israel years, to the point that T?ruah coordinates calendars
> with the seminaries. Students? road-to-Damascus moments often occur two
> hundred miles south on Highway 60, where visits to Hebron ? the West Bank
> city where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are said to be buried ? are often
> lightning bolts to the Diaspora soul. The Palestinian metropolis, the West
> Bank?s largest, also contains in its Old City several hundred Jewish
> settlers who are protected by armed Israeli soldiers and walk the otherwise
> emptied streets of the neighborhood.
>
> Buchdahl traveled to Jerusalem two years ago to study at a yeshiva there,
> the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. Almost immediately he found himself
> doing two things he had never done before: engaging in Palestinian
> solidarity activism and turning his phone off on Shabbat. While spending a
> night in a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, he witnessed a raid
> by Israeli security services. In another incident, he was attacked by
> settlers while assisting with the olive harvest in the northern West Bank
> town of Burin. ?I think there?s an assumption among American Jews that the
> more people learn about Zionism, the more Zionist they will become,? he
> said. ?And I think that?s wrong.?
>
> It is very difficult to conceive of a Judaism that does not prize the land
> of Israel, at least as an idea. Most Jewish sanctuaries in the U.S. are
> arranged so that attendees face east. The liturgy is peppered with place
> names: Yisrael, Tzion, Yerushalayim. ?Next year in Jerusalem!? is how every
> Passover is concluded. But there is a difference, argued Ilana Sumka, a
> second-year student of the ALEPH seminary who signed the letter, between
> the land of Israel from holy texts, ?which will always be an important part
> of our past, present and future,? and the modern country, which, depending
> on its policies, ?may change the relationship I have with the political
> entity.?
>
> Buchdahl knows what Judaism?s holy texts say. He knows that the liberated
> slaves? goal as they wandered 40 years in the wilderness was the Promised
> Land. He knows that King David?s feet did in ancient times walk the
> hillsides of Judah, and that his son, King Solomon, built in Jerusalem the
> Temple, the twice-destroyed center of worship and sacrifice of which every
> synagogue is a conscious imitation. But Buchdahl?s piety is precisely the
> source of his politics. ?My religious radicalization and political
> radicalization,? he said, ?happened concurrently.?
>
> A century ago, the Reform rabbi Stephen S. Wise helped codify Reform
> Judaism ? and, by extension, American Judaism ? as a religion that elevated
> concern with social justice in the most worldly sense. (Wise, who died in
> 1949, was also an early and influential Zionist.) This religious outlook is
> known as Prophetic Judaism, a Jewish counterpart to the Social Gospel.
> Prophetic Judaism highlighted prophets like Amos, Isaiah and Micah, whose
> teachings seemed to speak to contemporary issues. The call to do social
> justice was later linked to the ancient religious concept of ?repairing the
> world,? catapulting the Hebrew term tikkun olam into the American Jewish
> vernacular.
>
> Several of Prophetic Judaism?s favorite texts are set during the
> Israelites? exile in Babylon. They typically concern the sins of the people
> that justified their expulsion. ?I think the prophets are part of the
> canon, too,? Buchdahl said. He brought up a passage from the 33rd chapter
> of Ezekiel that spoke to the current predicament. The Israelites, already
> living in exile, receive the news that Jerusalem has been conquered by
> Babylonian forces. Speaking through Ezekiel, God lists several of the
> Israelites? evil deeds. It is true that the land was promised to them as
> descendants of Abraham. But they have violated His laws. They have shed
> blood. ?And,? He asks, ?you expect to inherit the land??
>
> ?We?ve been thrown out of the land before,? Buchdahl told me. ?Our
> connection to the land has conditions.?
> ------------------------------
>
> Marc Tracy is a media reporter for The Times. Previously, he covered
> college sports for five years. He has also been a staff writer at The New
> Republic and Tablet, a Jewish-interest magazine, where in 2011 he won the
> National Magazine Award for blogging.
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/private/salon/attachments/20211105/0be7c1ad/attachment.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> Salon mailing list
> Salon@listserve.com
> https://mlm2.listserve.net/mailman/listinfo/salon
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Salon Digest, Vol 3, Issue 1
> ***********************************
This archive was generated by a fusion of
Pipermail (Mailman edition) and
MHonArc.